I want to teach [people] the secret of great visual presentation. Your stomach sees the food first, and I want to help them match food flavor profiles with the aesthetics of everything.

The only way to teach people how to truly do it and do it the right way, is to get those ingredients and kitchen tools in front of them and in their hands to use.

I want to teach people how to do it the right way. And it is from that they can teach their children how to do it properly. It will teach them how to cook better and healthier at home.

I think it's really important to keep on staying motivated.

One of the things I've found now, not just for television, but in the restaurant, is that you have many anxious chefs, who know how to cook twenty recipes really well, but they don't have a good foundation for other things.

My passion for writing cookbooks really came from my love of collecting cookbooks.

Television in the '80s was very limited. There was no Food Network. When I opened Spago, I had the kitchen in the dining hall. It was probably the first restaurant to do so. The dining scene became more casual. All these cooking shows have transformed our profession one-hundred percent.