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I am obsessed with Chinese restaurants. Like many Americans, I first discovered them in my childhood.

Having spent many years working in New York's Chinatown restaurants early in my career, I have the utmost respect for the history and connection New Yorkers have with Chinese cuisine.

Sundays are for Dim Sum. While the rest of America goes to church, Sunday School, or NFL games, you can find Chinese people eating Cantonese food.

We all have to be dishes on a plate eventually, with the way we are marketed, but I have no intention of being a cheap Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet.

I actually didn't grow up in a household that loved Chinese food particularly, and it's not really my go-to food or anything... We were more a pizza family, being from the Chicago area and all.

I can't stay away from Chinese food. I really love that stuff.

Chinese cooking is noisy - a multitasking activity that requires constant vigilance. There is no downtime.

When it comes to Chinese food I have always operated under the policy that the less known about the preparation the better. A wise diner who is invited to visit the kitchen replies by saying, as politely as possible, that he has a pressing engagement elsewhere.

My plan is to open five restaurants based on the five elements in Chinese philosophy: wood, water, fire, earth and metal.

We might be shifting away from a Eurocentric view of the United States into something that's much more multicultural, multinational, and Chinese food is just one slice of that.