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I come from a wonderful family. My mother was a pianist and my father was a salesman. They were very middle-class, very middle-Western.

My father was a very good craftsman. He made furniture, he made silverware and he had an incredible gift in terms of how you can make something yourself.

My father worked in a scientific lab where he designed and built glass instruments. He was regarded as brilliant at his job and once constructed a human brain in glass just to show off his skills.

Generally my focus has been on people who make things, whether it's writers or directors or painters or musicians.

My father was a banker, but he was an independent spirit. He was a very good pianist and very much into music.

I started formal piano training when I was 4. From there I had little violas, and I had dancing lessons of every sort and description, and painting lessons. I had German. And shorthand.

Everywhere I go, I always look for creative entrepreneurs, whether it's artisans and craftsmen, small farmers and gardeners, or restaurateurs who use fresh, locally sourced ingredients.

When a little more than a teenager, I was a piano-bar pianist in the land where I was born and raised, Tuscany.