As they say in Italy, Italians were eating with a knife and fork when the French were still eating each other. The Medici family had to bring their Tuscan cooks up there so they could make something edible.

My wife Susi and my kids quite simply are the most fun of all my friends.

I put hibiscus flower in every cup of tea I have. It's sweet, sexy, and cleansing.

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.

I like anchovies, and I don't tell everybody about them. Almost every time, they don't even notice.

I think Tabasco brings me pure heat and Southern kind of familiarity, along with the vinegar and the barrel-aged spices.

Food, like most things, is best when left to its own simple beauty.