improvisation is about finding your own voice. When you prepare a dish, even if you make the same one just moments later, the rabbit loin will be sliced a little bit differently, or the composition will be slightly different.

I worked in 40 restaurants over a five-year period.

I took the obligatory economics classes in school, but I've long been a fan of the Milton Friedman philosophy and its libertarian bent: One must be free to do what one wants to do, as long as you don't harm another. This is the seminal treatise on free-market economics.

Any fool can be happy. What I'm interested in is satisfaction. There's got to be more to life than just being happy. You've got to be fulfilled. You've got to be satisfied; philosophically satisfied is what I mean.

What I was reading was already part of my psyche, but finally someone else was saying it's okay to walk alone.

A quarter century of running a restaurant - that's a long time to do one thing.