For reasons I didn't understand, I felt I needed to learn how to cook the food of France and knew that I was going to have to get over to the country: to Paris, I'd always assumed.

People have all this interest in food. But for most people, it's a mystery how to prepare food. I wanted the knowledge cooks know: the in-your-fingers knowledge you get by doing it over and over.

I ended up wanting to be a cook and hold my own in a restaurant.

If you ask the great city, ‘Who is this person?,’ she will answer, ‘He is my child.

Men do not have to cook their food; they do so for symbolic reasons to show they are men and not beasts.

I always knew that food and wine were vital, with my mother being Italian and a good cook.