When you've got a great business going, you go open another and take the risk of losing the whole thing. It's fun!

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!

My mother would put me on a wooden box at the stove and tell me to call her if certain things would happen. Like if the steam turns blue, that is danger!

I believe in America. I'm one of those silly flag wavers.

We're working people, and that's what we like to do, work.

In '71 or '72 I returned to New Orleans and stayed there. I started cooking Louisiana food. Of all the things I had cooked, it was the best-and it was my heritage.

If you have acid in food, you need to sugar it. At a high temperature, the acids are changed to sugar.