Curtis Stone Quotes

'Top Chef' is always entertaining - it's hard to stop watching, like a good hockey fight, but no one gets hurt. It's great that the format is so inherently dramatic and can make cooking so entertaining to people who might not ordinarily be interested in a cooking show. Good for the industry all round.

When I set up my first restaurant, I was so inspired by Wolfgang Puck, who is also based in L.A. and is now a good friend of mine, and the way he would engage with his customers and greet them personally.

I want to be Jacques Pepin. I want to have a nice 50-, 60-year career. I want to be on PBS when I'm 70-something, still kicking it, having a great time, showing up in Aspen to sign cookbooks. I just want to have a nice, big, long career.

When I was growing up, Chef Charlie Trotter inspired me a lot.

After attending The Dalton School and then Vassar College, I began cooking in New York City restaurants helmed by Anne Rosenzweig, Joachim Splichal and Thomas Keller.

All I watch is the Food Network. I took a cheesemaking class a few weeks ago, and I told my family and friends to only get me kitchen stuff on my birthday. I'm into every kind of cookbook and anything by Anthony Bourdain. I'd love to own a restaurant if I could find the right chef.

If my daughter wants to get into this business, I would support that decision. She's going to have a hard time not being in it. She loves food and she's around it all the time.

You can call me the bad boy chef all you want. I'm not going to freak out about it. I'm not that bad. I'm certainly not a boy, and it's been a while since I've been a chef.

I am a chef through and through. Everything I do - whether it is cooking for kids in Harlem or cooking in a fine dining establishment - all my days are consumed by food.

I'm not sure I'd write a good cookbook, but I might make a good cooking show.

Shows like 'Top Chef,' 'Hell's Kitchen' have helped bring attention to the culinary world on a whole, but you have to be cautious it doesn't get out of hand.

You know what, I don't really watch a lot of cooking shows, but what's great about them is that it inspires a lot of the younger generation so, you know, with cooking shows and reality shows and the social media, I think it really makes our industry a hotter industry.

Chef Thomas Keller was an inspiration to me and many, many young cooks like me. He told us that the role of the new, modern chef is different.

I started cooking in kitchens right out of high school, and I was lucky to work with a lot of great people, but I had no idea it would turn into this. Of course no one should go into this business because they want to be the next Emeril.

There are so many things you can do with a culinary degree.

I love 'Top Chef.'

My parents owned a soul food diner. It inspired me to go to culinary school.

When chefs like Wolfgang Puck became household names, that became a compelling reason for an intelligent young person to go into the cooking profession. There have been no waiters who have turned into household names. The service and hospitality aspects have clearly lagged behind the kitchen.

I'm obsessed with cooking! I want a degree in the culinary arts!

My cousin owns restaurants, and I used to work in his restaurants with his chef. I've always liked food, and I've always been interested in cooking and stuff like that.

I got my degree in culinary arts in 1978.

I would definitely be interested in doing a cooking show or something related to cooking, and I think probably most immediately, I would do a cookbook.

So I quit my job and went to the New England Culinary Institute for the full two years and worked in the restaurant industry after that until finally I thought I had a grasp on what I needed to do what I do.

Now everybody thinks that once you do Top Chef, then 13 weeks later you're a chef. Nobody wants to learn to cook anymore.

In recent years, I've been writing because I'm fortunate enough to work in the world of food television, to travel and taste and learn about cooking from the best chefs in the business.