I'm a firm believer that all this packaged stuff that Americans are buying up in gobs is making them fatter.

I was lucky enough to have great mentors both in the culinary world and in the world of chefs who became celebrities. Bobby Flay is one of my dearest friends and a tremendous mentor for me. Mario Batali is the same way. They began doing TV a little before me and they showed me the way.

I'm lucky that my restaurant partners are my wife Liz and Doug Petkovic. We opened our first restaurant over 15 years ago. And we didn't open up our second restaurant for almost ten years. So that gave us a good foundation of employees.

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.

My goal in 'Live to Cook' is to make great food more approachable for home cooks.

Never let the pressure get so big that you stop cooking and being who you are. I'm going to win or lose doing my food. Because when the pressure's on, you need to do food that you're very comfortable with.

Some of the greatest chefs in the world aren't classically trained. Thomas Keller - probably the greatest American chef ever to walk the earth - never went to culinary school. You know?