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

Even the most astute chefs seek out the assistance of Celine Labaune, owner of Gourmet Attitude, because they know they can rely on her keen senses and deep understanding of the truffle trade.

Hopefully, imparting what's important to me, respect for the food and that information about the purveyors, people will realize that for a restaurant to be good, so many pieces have to come together.

Vegetables to me are - I don't want to say the most exciting part of cooking, but certainly a very exciting part of cooking, because they continue to change. They come into season and they go through different phases.

This is the great challenge: to maintain passion for the everyday routine and the endlessly repeated act, to derive deep gratification from the mundane.

My favorite wines are Zinfandels.

I like to drink young wines, wines which are robust and have a lot of forward fruit to them.