Close interaction with farmers and scientists can expose the chef to new flavours that can be used to delight diners.

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?

Scandinavian-Danish cuisine was something quite rustic, mostly known for pastries and smorgasbord cuisine, which in itself has become a joke.

If you see how a plant grows and you taste it in situ you have a perfect example of how it should taste on the plate.

When you start at catering college, nobody prepares you for a book tour or public speaking.

You wake up, your life is discipline: there's kids, breakfast, lunch box, go to work, discipline, organization, guests. Imagine the semi-final of Super Bowl. We have that every day: lunch and dinner. We play that game. Then you come home and you really just want to drink a beer. But then you discipline yourself and you have to do this thing, this journal. It was painful but I'm so happy I did it. I have newfound respect for people that write.

If you see someone in the kitchen that has good hands and a quick brain, then you need that person to be in the front of everything.