I'm a professional cook. I've worked with other cooks from all over the world, but my family is not that way - they're always lived within 25 miles of my hometown!

Don't get fancy. Have you cooked an apple pie? You don't know what you did wrong? Do this: Take two or three apples. Put them on a table. Study them.

Creole is New Orleans city food. Communities were created by the people who wanted to stay and not go back to Spain or France.

I opened my own restaurant when I was 17. I went broke, then traveled around the country, learning about different kinds of foods, had three other restaurants that went broke. It didn't all start just a few years ago!

We closed the restaurant in New Orleans and brought the entire staff to San Francisco. But we had to go home.

I didn't want to do just another set of recipes. I think that's useless.

Some people absorb in different ways. I didn't realize until I was 15 years old how much I retained.