For me, the kitchen is the most special room in the house. It's a place for adventure - not drudgery, but discovery, sharing and showing off with friends, trying new ideas.

I cook everything. I love Mediterranean cooking, I love Asian cooking. I do lots of Japanese noodles.

Two words to improve any dish. Ba, Con

It's very important to me that people who are actual chefs and other professionals in the culinary world, understand that I'm not, and have never held myself out as being, like a CIA trained chef.

You know the great irony is that people think you have to have money to enjoy fine food, which is a shame.

Cooking for people is an enormously significant expression of generosity and soulfulness.

People want honest, flavourful food, not some show-off meal that takes days to prepare.

However, I was a restaurant critic at Chicago magazine before I worked at Esquire, and I've been a really enthusiastic home cook for a long time. It's just something I'm passionate about.

My place in Chicago is a 105 year old house, but I really like contemporary spaces too, so it's refreshing and fun to be in a space where you can do contemporary things.

If I have committed any culinary atrocities, please forgive me.

In actuality, there was casting for the show and it was pretty difficult.

Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.

Love and Divinity are both gifts from Nature, fraught with the highest bliss.

It is better to trade your bitterness with gratefulness.

Patience is a muscle you need to exercise or you will lose it.

The government has the right to change laws and rules and regulations.

I had travelled pretty widely around the world even before then, so I knew where to go to film wildlife.

The most beautiful things can only be created by the most free minds!

Fear was given to man as a cautionary device to spare him pain; it is not mean to be cultivated and abused.

Always be kind in your heart, spirit and mind.

The Magicians Apprentice was about someone from the low end of society manifesting magical power and how that completely messes up the balance of the whole system.