People complain that chefs aren't at their restaurants anymore, but I don't think that's the case at all. You see them on TV and you assume they're not working but they are.

Go to the grocery store and buy better things. Buy quality, buy organic, buy natural, go to the farmers market. Immediately that's going to increase the quality of the food you make.

Chefs hate desserts. The smartest thing a chef can do is hire a great pastry chef. Cooking savory food is all about feel - you season something, you taste it, you go back in and adjust, more butter, more olive oil, more acid, whatever you want to get it to taste the way you want. Pastries are like a science project. To me, the greatest chefs are the ones who have the greatest feel for food, while the greatest pastry chefs have to be people that are extremely precise.

Sometimes a minute is really the difference between success and failure. There are times when you finish with ten seconds left, and one extra minute could've meant everything. You almost have to think of it as a sporting-event type of atmosphere: A football game is sixty minutes long. Think of how many games could be won or lost if the team had one more minute?

You've always got to work to your highest ability level. When times are great and restaurants are jamming, that's when some restaurants get sloppy and take things for granted. Never take things for granted.

Eating chicken without skin is like riding a bike without wheels

On 'Chopped,' the time goes down a bit and there are several ingredients, usually one that makes no sense whatsoever with the rest of the ingredients. So it gets you out of your culinary comfort zone a little bit. Like we had octopus and cheese paired up with each other.