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In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.

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

I think I should learn French and be a better cook - basic, really good life stuff.

As young cook, especially in France, they're very tough in the kitchen. The idea is to make you humble and learn fast.

French cooking is really the result of peasants figuring out how to extract flavor from pedestrian ingredients. So most of the food that we think of as elite didn't start out that way.

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 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.

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.

Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore.

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.