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.

And don't forget music - music in the kitchen is an essential ingredient!

I drank more wine when I wasn't working as much, to be honest.

My favorite wines are Zinfandels.

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.

Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore.

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.