[Building a dessert on an unlikely flavor can also be risky business.] If it's warm and chocolate it's nirvana for most people, ... But I can't give away prune desserts.

Look, there's no metaphysics on earth like chocolates.

I dislike cloyingly sweet desserts - sweet is not a flavor - so I suggest dialing back the sweetness and focusing on what the dessert is about, whether it is a ripe fruit, chocolate, etc.

It used to be you were the last one to get equipment, you were low man on the totem pole.

The testosterone that flows through the hot line in the kitchen is unbelievable. Women are considered weaker and were always pushed off to pastry.

Men are always pushed into group situations ... like group sports with a leader. In the kitchen the chef is your captain, but in pastry there is more autonomy, more independence. Women relish that. you are permitted to be creative sooner than on the hot line.