Cooking for people is an enormously significant expression of generosity and soulfulness, and entertaining is a way to be both generous and creative. You're sharing your life with people. Of course, it's also an expression of your own need for approval and applause. Nothing wrong with that.

The best way to learn is live, in person, cooking, feeling, smelling and tasting, but TV is the second-best thing to that; it's a halfway facsimile.

I'm in a loft and the kitchen is in the very center of the apartment. The whole place revolves around it.

People want honest, flavourful food, not some show-off meal that takes days to prepare.

My place in Chicago is a 105 year old house, but I really like contemporary spaces too, so it's refreshing and fun to be in a space where you can do contemporary things.

Planning a dinner party in a way that you're actually capable of getting it done without panicking is important. It's bad hospitality for the host to be freaked out.

It's very important to me that people who are actual chefs and other professionals in the culinary world, understand that I'm not, and have never held myself out as being, like a CIA trained chef.