In '71 or '72 I returned to New Orleans and stayed there. I started cooking Louisiana food. Of all the things I had cooked, it was the best-and it was my heritage.

It's the sense of what family is at the dinner table. It was the joy of knowing mother was in the kitchen making our favorite dish. I wish more people would do this and recall the joy of life.

One of the problems of our youth is that the family unit is broken up. When we'd sit down to dinner together as a family, we'd learn about each other. We had something people don't get today.

What I think and what the world thinks is totally different.

After failing four times and after working for other people and realizing that nobody paid attention to the food like they should have, we wanted to just pay attention to the food and service.

When I travel I normally eat club sandwiches or I bring my own food. When you go into a new town, it's very had to find a good place to eat.

I'm just here and I'm doin' the best I can. If you don't understand that, then what can I do?

I love people, and I'm excited that I can turn them on.

My mother would put me on a wooden box at the stove and tell me to call her if certain things would happen. Like if the steam turns blue, that is danger!

Have fun. Do something nobody else had done before, or has done since.

I'm a professional cook. I've worked with other cooks from all over the world, but my family is not that way - they're always lived within 25 miles of my hometown!

One of my missions was to teach.

We trust something in a grocery store and assume it's good. We don't learn about the most precious thing in life-the food we put in our body. Educate yourself!

We didn't do wrong things because we didn't want to embarrass our parents.

When you've got a great business going, you go open another and take the risk of losing the whole thing. It's fun!

You don't need a silver fork to eat good food.

The bad part about being recognized is that when I walk into a restaurant and sit down, I've got to eat everything on the plate, whether it's good or bad. People would take it as an insult if I did otherwise.

I think the most wonderful thing in the world is another chef. I'm always excited about learning new things about food.

Some people absorb in different ways. I didn't realize until I was 15 years old how much I retained.

Cajun is country food by farmers and fisherman that arrived in Louisiana from Acadiana, Canada.

I'd like to have the first restaurant that can deliver incredible quality food to your table at your house at any time-right where you live.

We had no electricity, no gas. Food was probably our greatest entertainment - the most fun thing that we could do was food.

I didn't want to do just another set of recipes. I think that's useless.

In '71 or '72 I returned to New Orleans and stayed there. I started cooking Louisiana food. Of all the things I had cooked, it was the best-and it was my heritage.

I believe in America. I'm one of those silly flag wavers.

I opened my own restaurant when I was 17. I went broke, then traveled around the country, learning about different kinds of foods, had three other restaurants that went broke. It didn't all start just a few years ago!

We're working people, and that's what we like to do, work.

We closed the restaurant in New Orleans and brought the entire staff to San Francisco. But we had to go home.

I wait for the next opportunity to have something to do with food. If I get rested, my mind just starts creating new dishes - click, click, click.

I don't think life is to be taken too seriously. Take it too seriously, and it'll getcha.

I opened a restaurant that had nothing but California wines.

Don't get fancy. Have you cooked an apple pie? You don't know what you did wrong? Do this: Take two or three apples. Put them on a table. Study them.

When I am done with this meal you can have my life. It is heaven.

I would work as a cook, get a little money, then open another restaurant.

Creole is New Orleans city food. Communities were created by the people who wanted to stay and not go back to Spain or France.

If you have acid in food, you need to sugar it. At a high temperature, the acids are changed to sugar.

When the taste changes with every bite and the last bite is as good as the first thats Cajun.

When the taste changes with every bite and the last bite tastes as good as the first thats Cajun.

Cajun is country food by farmers and fisherman that arrived in Louisiana from Acadiana Canada.

I think the most wonderful thing in the world is another chef. Im always excited about learning new things about food.

You dont need a silver fork to eat good food.

I ended up turning down a full scholarship of music at the conservatory to pay to go to cooking school.

You know, this is really a way of cooking. It's not my way. I'm deeply influenced by the Mediterranean way of being. I've spent a lot of time there. And I've sort of translated it; I've tried to make it available to people in this country to whom it might not be familiar.

You know, you've got serious pieces, you've got light pieces, you've got cooking segments, you've got health-related topics, so it's not as if they've had a unique personality from the get-go.

Are you casting asparagus on my cooking?

I just get all jacked up when we start cooking.

There are people who claim to be instinctive cooks, who never follow recipes or weigh anything at all. All I can say is they're not very fussy about what they eat. For me, cooking is an exact art and not some casual game.

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.

I don't believe in low-fat cooking.