I happen to love coconut, particularly for that sweet and crunchy texture it adds to any dish.

I'm a big believer in the negligee, that nearly invisible screen standing between you and the object of your desire.

In Europe I couldn't be anything but a black cook working for somebody. My inspiration was to own, to be the chef.

In Ethiopia, where I was born, all the cooks are women. When I grew up in Sweden, my mom and my grandmother did predominantly all the cooking. Then I changed to restaurant kitchens, where all of a sudden there were just more men than women, and I always thought that was weird.

For many of us, clean water is so plentiful and readily available that we rarely, if ever, pause to consider what life would be like without it.

Larousse Gastronomique has always been the first and last word on classic European techniques and recipes. I love that it has expanded its reach to cover world cuisines and modern culinary innovations, making it more indispensable than ever.

People come up to me all the time and ask how I stay the way I am, and it's no secret. The first lesson a chef needs to learn is how to handle a knife; the second is how to be around all that food.