My chocolate is special because it's real. My pistachios are from Italy, and the almonds are from Spain. We make our own marzipan. If I sell a product that says 'raspberry,' it's real raspberry. My plan was to make the best product possible and be the least expensive of the best chocolate makers. That's still our position.
I'm a mushroom freak. I make a mushroom soup where I use maybe six or seven varieties, not just portobello and shiitake, but dried porcini and morels.
I like to cook and go to Whole Foods.
I love celery and people don't use it a lot. Celery and flavors in that family - it really brightens and is refreshing.
Any good kitchen should be stocked up in oysters, shouldn't they?
My most memorable meal was with my parents at Joel Robuchon's Restaurant Jamin in Paris. It was Christmas 1982, and the flavors - from cauliflower and caviar to crab and tomato - astounded me. It was the first time I remember thinking that I would like to really learn how to cook.
I'm not much of a chef, so people keep buying me cookery books to broaden my culinary horizons, but I've not got far past shepherd's pie yet.
If you would ask me some of the ingredients that people are surprised by that could appear on my menu are such things as bleu cheese, vegetables like parsnips and rutabaga, bacon, pork fat, fois gras, truffles, and olives.
I jokingly refer to the word 'gourmet' as the 'g' word.
It wasn't the traditional cooking most people do. For me, as a young chef, Thanksgiving meant going to work in the kitchen at places like Gotham, JoJo and Jean-Georges.
For the longest time, chefs and restaurateurs were able to get products home cooks couldn't get, but that's not the case anymore.
