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For me, whether it's in a book or on T.V., a recipe has to be simple. I have a short attention span, so to open a cookbook and see a recipe that goes on for three to four pages, well, I've lost interest.

There are so many things that come into writing a recipe, and it's really important if you're writing for home cooks to be cooking like you are at home.

You don't have to stick with these recipes. They're guides. As I say, they're a way in. Have fun with them. It's an easier way to cook in a busy life, once you get the hang of it.

Even though I'm big on recipes, I love to make up my own dishes and when you take a risk in the kitchen, you learn a lot about food!

Taking dishes straight off the restaurant's menu and putting them into a cookbook doesn't work, because as a chef you have your own vision of what your food is, but you can't always explain it. Or you can't pick recipes that best illustrate who and where you are and what you're doing. And if the recipes don't work, you don't have a book.

Once you know the fundamentals of cooking, then you don't need to follow a recipe - you just know what herbs go well or what meats, or what combination of what goes together, and then you can just branch out from there. But if there's something specific that I want to make, I work on the recipe and tweak it to my own.

Recipes are important but only to a point. What's more important than recipes is how we think about food, and a good cookbook should open up a new way of doing just that.

If I had one piece of advice for people - if they are cooking from the Alinea cookbook, the Betty Crocker cookbook or the back of the box - read through the entire recipe first before reaching for any ingredients, and then read again and execute the directions.

I use other cookbooks for inspiration. I must say I tend to cook from my own cookbooks for parties.

I learned so much more prepping vegetables than I ever did in cooking school.