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You're getting to know who the great chefs are through their books.

Part of what makes a great chef is the ability to adapt, cook, and to taste. A great chef will use all their food knowledge, food memories, and senses to work with each ingredient and apply themselves to the dish they are creating.

Chefs have a new opportunity - and perhaps even an obligation - to inform the public about what is good to eat, and why.

First of all, I can't really claim to be a great chef.

I wanted to write a food book, but I'm not a chef or an expert on culinary matters, to put it mildly.

I really feel I have found myself as a chef. It's very clear to me what I want to do - and how it should taste.

Very good cooks who are employed as 'chefs' rarely refer to themselves as 'chefs.' They refer to themselves as 'cooks.'

A great chef is an artist that I truly respect.

As chefs, we cook to please people, to nourish people.

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.