In New York, I'll walk down the street and someone will say, 'Nice show,' and that's it. If I'm at a food festival, it's open season.

I know nothing about hip-hop... There's only so many times you can grab your crotch and prance around stage. I'm gonna get slammed now for this.

Every chef should have an understanding of pastries or desserts.

Mushrooms can be very fancy. It's the closest you can get to eating dirt.

This is what people don't understand: obesity is a symptom of poverty. It's not a lifestyle choice where people are just eating and not exercising. It's because kids - and this is the problem with school lunch right now - are getting sugar, fat, empty calories - lots of calories - but no nutrition.

A couple of months ago, I was down in Florida for the Food and Wine Festival. And this journalist grabbed me and said, 'How does it feel to be a TV guy? You're no longer in the restaurant business.' And I laughed. I asked him, 'How long do you think it takes me to do a season?' He said, 'Well, 200 days.' And I was like, '200 days? Try 20!'

Asian food is very easy to like because it hits your mouth very differently than European food does. In European food, there may be two things to hit - maybe sweet and salty, maybe salty-savory, … but Asian kind of works around, plus you have that distinct flavor that’s usually working in Asian food.