Respect for food is respect for life, for who we are and what we do.

A cookbook must have recipes, but it shouldn't be a blueprint. It should be more inspirational; it should be a guide.

My childhood wasn't full of wonderful culinary memories.

I wanted to write about what we were doing at the French Laundry, the recipes and the stories.

When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy, that is what cooking is all about.

I think every young cook wants to write a book.

They know what my standards are. They know what I need and how to get it to me, and they know how to communicate with me if for some reason they can't get it.