In the summer you want fresh, light and sort of quick things; in winter you want things that are comforting, so your body really tells you you want to go towards potatoes, apples, fennel, things that are warm and comforting. And loin of pork.
I adore summer entertaining. For a dinner party at the farm, I might prepare homemade fettuccine with porcini mushrooms, soft-shell crabs, spinach from the garden, and lemon tarts with fraises des bois for dessert.
I've taught myself how to use good, fresh ingredients and to prepare them as simply as possible by cooking only to enhance their intrinsic flavors.
Simple ingredients prepared in a simple way - that's the best way to take your everyday cooking to a higher level.
Homemade gazpacho tastes different than any gazpacho you can buy because you know exactly how much time it took for each plant to mature. That's why I would encourage buying at a farmers' market or at Whole Foods, because it comes straight from the source to your table.
Basically, I go to the local farmer's market and decide to what to cook then, depending on what I find. Either my wife or I cook, and we usually finish a bottle or two of wine by the time we are done cooking and eating.
I cook. I go to farmers markets in London and cook really good sort of organic foods.
Nowadays, food needs to be healthy, local, sustainable and not filled with too much fat, salt or sugar. It should be slow-cooked and seasonal. That's my vision.
My students regularly spend 20 hours or more in the kitchen with me. I try to teach them that even the most well-written recipe for, say, gazpacho can never take into account the ways in which a tomato that's lapped each morning and evening by coastal fog will taste completely different from one grown in a hot, inland valley.
My biggest cooking influence, my No. 1, is my grandma. Then it's the farmers. When I go to the farm stand and see what's available, that's where I get most of my inspiration.
I've been making sushi for 38 years, and I'm still learning. You have to consider the size and color of the ingredients, how much salt and vinegar to use and how the seasons affect the fattiness of the fish.
One of the biggest problems with young chefs is too much addition to the plate. You put cilantro and then tarragon and then olive oil and then walnut oil or whatever. It's too much.
I love food, all food, everything about food. I enjoy going to the market and having what's in front of me - what's fresh, seasonal - tell me what I'm cooking.
Part of what makes a great chef is the ability to adapt, cook, and to taste. A great chef will use all their food knowledge, food memories, and senses to work with each ingredient and apply themselves to the dish they are creating.
The combination of olive oil, garlic and lemon juice lifts the spirits in winter.
You have to balance, but you can be aggressive as a chef. It benefits the food. You have to be passionate. You can't be angry cooking.
There is but one season of the year when salmon should be served hot at a choice repast; that is in the spring and early summer, and even then it is too satisfying, nut sufficiently delicate. The man who gives salmon during the winter, I care not what sauce he serves with it, does an injury to himself and his guests.
Any simple but delicious dish that celebrates the season and locality is what I want to be known for.
I have a certain point of view, a certain way to plate food, certain ingredients that I like to use.
At its best, [Japanese cooking] is inextricably meshed with aesthetics, with religion, with tradition and history. It is evocative of seasonal changes, or of one's childhood, or of a storm at sea.
My dishes tend to have a very carefree style: what's ripe at the farmers market or what's in my fridge, even if I'm cleaning out my fridge. It tends to be a very improvisational style. I major in salads, but a loose definition of salad; it can have a real robust skirt steak on top of it off the grill or quinoa or buckwheat or sprouted almond.
Are you casting asparagus on my cooking?
The essence of a thoughtful spring menu is bringing the table to life with flavorful color!
My fantasy is to have a restaurant where there are no written menus, but where you just ask people, 'What are you in the mood for? Fish? Meat? White wine?'
A kaiseki meal is like that, very small courses over a long period of time.
