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.

Good food is a good trend.

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.

A kaiseki meal is like that, very small courses over a long period of time.

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

I think if you can take one or two things from a cookbook, it's successful.

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.