I did go into the Amazonian region of Brazil. They have prehistoric river fish that weigh in at around 600 pounds, which you don’t see anywhere else. And foods that cannot be exported or even found in other parts of Brazil.
Going to Southeast Asia for the first time and tasting that spectrum of flavors – that certainly changed my whole palate, the kind of foods I crave. A lot of the dishes I used to love became boring to me.
Big stuff and little: learning how to order breakfast in a country where I don’t speak the language and haven’t been before – that’s really satisfying to me. I like that.
I’m not searching for hard news; I’m not a journalist, but I’m interested in pushing to boundaries of where we can do the kind of stories that we want to do. I mean, it’s a big world and CNN has made it a lot bigger and they haven’t flinched.
I managed to reach a depth of self-loathing that usually takes a night of drinking to achieve.
Without new ideas success can become stale.
Naturally, I’m misanthropic. But the Negronis are helping considerably.
You have to love a town where you can both smoke and gamble in a pharmacy.
I’m a guy who should not have a lot of free time. But when it comes to vacation, I like to pull the plug completely. It’s all about my daughter – I’m no longer the star of my own movie.
In my house, neither my wife nor my daughter are impressed that I’m on television, and they remind me of that frequently.
I’m sure one of the frustrations of being a Western enthusiast of Japanese food and culture is you’re confronted every day with the absolute certainty that you will die ignorant.
I can’t do exercises regularly because my schedule changes from day to day. I’m okay with hurting myself, like I’ll lift something until it hurts, but I don’t want to pass out or vomit in front of people.
If I were trapped in one city and had to eat one nation’s cuisine for the rest of my life, I would not mind eating Japanese. I adore Japanese food. I love it.
Turning your nose up at a genuine and sincere gesture of hospitality is no way to travel or to make friends around the world.
One of my few virtues – I don’t have a lot of them – would be a deep sense of curiosity. I’m interested in how other people live in other places; I’m interested in other cultures.
People everywhere have been very, very good to me, whether I’m with or without cameras.
I am a delightfully evangelical guy about things I love. I am that annoying guy who sits everyone down and forces them to read some book I like. I’m looking across the full spectrum of genres.
When my father passed, I was still an unsuccessful cook with a drug problem. I was in my mid-thirties, standing behind an oyster bar, cracking clams for a living when he died. So, he never saw me complete a book or achieve anything of note. I would have liked to have shared this with him.
I’d like to play bass like Bootsy Collins. I’m serious. That would be my dream.
I think it’s a universal truth that most chefs I know are happiest eating simple, unadorned good things.