I can't crack jokes because I don't have any.

I started to change. It was sort of a restaurant mid-life crisis, you could say. I lost a lot of confidence, not so much as a father or as a friend, but as a boss, as a chef that's to make decisions throughout the day all the time. I just slowly started burning out. Once you lose your confidence like that, you start being angry in the kitchen. I couldn't recognize myself anymore. I started writing the journal. It was never meant to be a book, but the editor at Phaidon read parts of it. As editors do, I guess.

21 years ago when I started cooking, to be a cook meant that you were going to stay in the basement. Being a chef, you would never be on a book tour. You could never dream that 20 years later on you would be on a book tour. It wasn't a part of your dreams because it was just totally unrealistic. When did cooks - restaurant cooks, not cooks that have 15,000 television shows - when did cooks become part of pop culture the way they are?

Take a trip to the forest and experience the greatness of getting on your knees and picking your own food and going home... and eating it.

I only have the restaurant. If I do other things, it's only to do with the restaurant.

Learning about issues such as sustainability and locavorism are things that you need to have as part of you as a chef because it will make you cook more delicious food.

I would love to eat a really great burger, but it doesn't exist in our part of the world.