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I'm not a trained chef. I'm a self-taught cook, and I want people to be like, 'Yo, I could do that! Maybe I didn't think to or maybe it seemed harder than it really is.'

I'm not on chef level, but I'd make a good line cook. That's not too shabby.

First of all, I can't really claim to be a great chef.

It's like a kitchen, acting. Put a chef in a kitchen and they will have different recipes. Whatever your recipe, what works for you won't work for another.

I had turned down other head chef jobs. I didn't want to take over someone else's cuisine. I wanted to start from scratch.

If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that's exactly what I did.

You have no choice as a professional chef: you have to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat until it becomes part of yourself. I certainly don't cook the same way I did 40 years ago, but the technique remains. And that's what the student needs to learn: the technique.

The role of a chef isn't to reinvent dishes but to tweak.

I wanted to write a food book, but I'm not a chef or an expert on culinary matters, to put it mildly.