I have no formal culinary training, right.

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

Cooking is not about convenience and it's not about shortcuts. Our hunger for the twenty-minute gourmet meal, for one-pot ease and prewashed, precut ingredients has severed our lifeline to the satisfactions of cooking. Take your time. Take a long time. Move slowly and deliberately and with great attention.

Food is such an important part of our lives, and sometimes we tend to diminish the importance of that, because we rely on conveniences or because our lives are so complicated. We forget about those moments that we can actually share around the table with our family, with our friends, with our loved ones.

I don't think you could have a 7 with a manual. But I can't see having a BMW sports sedan without a manual.

We go through our careers and things happen to us. Those experiences made me what I am.

Good food is a good trend.