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I was a very good cook, and I knew I could build a business.

My mother felt we'd be earning a living during our entire adult lives, and therefore believed we should spend summers in learning activities. Consequently, I got to see a plate glass factory in Pittsburgh, a U.S. Steel plant, and how Heinz made ketchup.

My father was a chef but hadn't owned his own business. I didn't like that. In my heart of hearts, I knew I wanted to be in business.

We came from a family where we ran our own small business. Our dad made his own products. We made our own sausages, our own meatloafs, our own pickles. Dad had to do everything himself. He had to figure out how to finance his business.

Both my parents worked. So it wasn't like the previous generation where we learned how to cook and bake from our mothers and grandmothers.

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.

I've been a foodie most of my life. I started when I lived for a year in Germany in my early 20s, and here was this new food environment, and I decided I needed to make sense of it. And I found it was the rules of economics that do the best job. Food is a capitalist product of supply and demand.

I wanted to learn everything I could about what it takes to be a great chef. It was a turning point for me.

I always knew I wanted to be a chef.

I love to have Heinz Salad Cream on all my food!