Life's too short to just breeze on by.
America is a country of abundance, but our food culture is sad - based on huge portions and fast food. Let's stop with the excuses and start creating something better.
Food, to me, is always about cooking and eating with those you love and care for.
Fear is a driving force for most of the things that I do. I don't know if that's healthy.
Open your refrigerator, your freezer, your kitchen cupboards, and look at the labels on your food. You'll find 'natural flavor' or 'artificial flavor' in just about every list of ingredients. The similarities between these two broad categories are far more significant than the differences.
Chef Thomas Keller was an inspiration to me and many, many young cooks like me. He told us that the role of the new, modern chef is different.
To eat well, I always disagree with critics who say that all restaurants should be fine dining. You can get a Michelin star if you serve the best hamburger in the world.
As a child, I didn't see my dad that much because he was always working at the restaurant. He became pretty jaded after working at the restaurant for so long.
'Tampopo's amazing. I think it's an absolutely fantastic movie, but I don't think it captures for me the meaning of food.
When you meet the farmers and go to the farms, you see that they treat their animals like they're family. It makes a big difference.
Yes, natural is good and healthy, and whole foods are important. However, experimentation is important, too.
If people ask me, 'What do you think could improve in Toronto dining,' I'd say there's nothing to improve on.
I like eggs. My favorite way of cooking eggs is old school French.
I'm a big sports fan.
The process and organization leading up to cooking the egg can tell you a lot about the cook.
If you ask what people say what American cuisine is, they cannot really do it. I don't know what it is.
I feel like I'm losing my ability to understand reality; like when someone loses their hearing, they can still speak English, but their speech eventually becomes distorted because they can't hear themselves.
Why can't it be awesome to work for a food company? Why can't we create an environment where people are trying to push each other to do great things, and we're not trying to steal from anybody - we're trying to be good to our farmers and run an honorable business, if there is such a thing anymore?
I think being Shaquille O'Neal would be the most amazing thing. There's nothing I would have done differently in his life. Everything he's done I think is pretty spot on, even, like, the bad rap videos, the shoes, the movies, everything.
I hate to say 'chain restaurant,' but we're sort of a corporation now. How do we defy that concept, where people assume each restaurant can't be good?
