The great thing about chefs as celebrities is it gives you a larger stage to let people know how important great food is. You're able to reach a nation. The hardest thing about being a celebrity chef is you go from working 18-hour days in your kitchen to it pulling you out of your kitchen here and there. I used to be in my kitchen six or seven days a week, and for ten years I never even took a vacation.

Sitting down for dinner not only helps you learn, but also teaches you how to listen - which I feel is the most important skill to have. I remember as a kid going around the table listening to everyone's day. It was hard to have the manners not to interrupt back then.

I love doing demonstrations. I think to be a great chef you have to be a great teacher. I love doing classes with people who love food and enjoy food, bringing them all around one table so to speak.

Hitler was a vegetarian.

I always tell my employees, the busier it gets, the slower you should cook. When you run around like a crazy person, that's when things go wrong.

Because I'm so known as a meat-chef, when I talk about Meatless Monday some people look at me like I've lost my mind. I'm like, look, I'm not saying beef and pork is bad, I love it and I eat it six days a week.

When I met my wife 20 plus years ago, she was a vegetarian, so I was the closest thing to the devil that she had ever met.