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

I think that you’ve got to make something that pleases you and hope that other people feel the same way.

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.

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.

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

Its not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it's about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then u'll be a great cook.

Any job worth doing is worth doing well. But to be able to do that, you have to do it over and over again.