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I still feel that French cooking is the most important in the world, one of the few that has rules. If you follow the rules, you can do pretty well.

I grew up in France, my first language was French, and I tend to gravitate towards French cooking.

My mother likes what I cook, but doesn't think it's French. My wife is Puerto Rican and Cuban, so I eat rice and beans. We have a place in Mexico, but people think I'm the quintessential French chef.

I sometimes think I should go back to school to learn French and music, but who would have me?

In Paris and later in Marseille, I was surrounded by some of the best food in the world, and I had an enthusiastic audience in my husband, so it seemed only logical that I should learn how to cook 'la cuisine bourgeoise' - good, traditional French home cooking.

I cook. I did the Escoffier course in Paris when I was 21 in one of those periods when it was like a pause. I can cook anything Italian, Chinese.

I don't ever want to stop learning. And I really want to learn French fluently. It would be great to go and live in France.

I don't like French food. I like everything but French food.

My biggest challenge is cooking traditional French dishes, which usually require very specific techniques and methods. That's just not my style... I cook from the soul.

I went to L'Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and I think French cooking is the basis for a lot of classical cuisine, a foundation of a lot of other cuisines. That said, it's not the only way to approach a cooking career.