“I was a little, uh, incorrigible as a kid, so the kitchen was a good place to give me structure and balance. It taught me hard work, but then I grew to love it.”

My mother and my grandmother are pioneers of Mexican cuisine in this country, so I grew up in the kitchen. My mom, Zarela Martinez, was by far my biggest influence and inspiration – and toughest critic.

Instead of going out, I’m trying to encourage people to have a memorable experience in their own home. We call it ‘Delicioso Night In.’ I invite the people I care about the most. Then, when I get a lot of people together, I like to have finger foods.

Latin food suffers like Chinese. You can do marginal Chinese and be successful. You can do crappy Mexican and be packed.

I wanted to get away from the Mexican vernacular and do more ‘nuevo Latino.’ Americans are starting to understand regionality in Mexican food. It is very regional in terms of ingredients.

I like to cook with the philosophy of using great ingredients and not altering them too much.

Nobody likes sweaty coleslaw.

My biggest challenge is cooking traditional French dishes, which usually require very specific techniques and methods. That’s just not my style… I cook from the soul.

What is commonly called a pest is nature’s way of bringing back into balance an imbalance that man has created.

For at least the past 65 years, liberalism has been nothing if not an attempt to strike a balance between the needs of the community and the needs of individuals, between the need for freedom and the need for order.

Memories, all those little experiences make up the fabric of our lives and on balance, I wouldn’t want to erase any of them, tempting though it may be.

I believe the government of the United States should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause.

There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.

You deal with their balance over the long run.

We’ve got to look toward two years from now [January 2017] to at least provide some balance in congress.

The unfortunate part is there`s not enough balance in the legislative chambers, and particularly the senate that has to do that confirmation for there to be enough pushback.