When you add just a little bit [of Tabasco] at the end, what you taste is the spectrum between the cooked chile flavor and the kind of nearly raw, just kind of fermented chile flavor at the end.

My last meal? The food would be much less significant than the company.

I come from an Italian family. One of the greatest and most profound expressions we would ever use in conversations or arguments was a slamming door. The slamming door was our punctuation mark.

I don't think fine dining is dying, but I think those rare occasions when you really want the fanciness are diminishing... I think a lot of people are going to find simpler, more casual ways to enjoy an experience.

The idea of having dinner together every day with your family removes the pressure from trying to explain everything. You tell us the good parts about your day, but you also tell us the bad parts about your day. And at the end of that, because you're in a ritual, you remove the pressure of admitting you had a failure that day. And it also takes the wind out of having a great day. I mean, it makes you a little bit more normal all the time. That moment of therapeutic sharing is something that happens in food, that doesn't necessarily happen when you're watching TV.

Food is "everyday"-it has to be, or we would not survive for long. But food is never just something to eat. It is something to find or hunt or cultivate first of all.

I think in times of bizarre strangeness, what you can and should do is spend time with your family eating lunch or dinner. And if you can do that, you will restore us to the peace.