“Don’t touch my dick, don’t touch my knife.”

I learned to recognize failure.

I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.

That without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, moribund.

And chicken is boring. Chefs see it as a menu item for people who don’t know what they want to eat.

Selling out is getting a job.

Good food and good eating are about risk.

Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one’s life.

Cream rises. Excellence does have its rewards.

What’s the opposite of suck? Un-suck?

An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins.

Few things are more beautiful to me than a bunch of thuggish, heavily tattooed line cooks moving around each other like ballerinas on a busy Saturday night.

Don’t lie about it. You made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just don’t do it again. Ever.

This, I knew, was the magic I had until now been only dimly and spitefully aware of.

Our movements through time and space seem somehow trivial compared to a heap of boiled meat in broth, the smell of saffron, garlic, fishbone, and Pernod.

I’ve long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk.

I lurched away from the table after a few hours feeling like Elvis in Vegas – fat, drugged, and completely out of it.

I pride myself in figuring out how to elevate a dish with a little preserved lemon or, then, a sprinkle of Maldon salt.

Music is the fourth great material want, first food, then clothes, then shelter, then music.

I grew up with that farm-to-table dining before it was sweeping the nation. I do think there’s some value to really throwing yourself into food and embracing where it comes from.

Prana is more powerful than just about anything – food, exercise, skin creams, and Spanx.

If you have an Ina Garten-level roasted-chicken recipe, it’s a game changer. I bring that to dinner parties and make a lot of friends.

Food makes travel so exceptional, because you get to taste what it’s actually supposed to taste like. To eat the real Pad Thai or finally have a proper curry is something pretty amazing.

I do think there’s some value to really throwing yourself into food and embracing where it comes from.

Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.