A cookbook must have recipes, but it shouldn't be a blueprint. It should be more inspirational; it should be a guide.

Like any good cook, you go back in the kitchen and you revamp your recipe and you take what you have on hand and you still make up something pretty good. And I think after spending the last two months with the women on our team, I think that with certainty we can whip up something pretty good.

Some of the recipes in the book have evolved for us. Many haven't.

I think every young cook wants to write a book.

I wanted to write about what we were doing at the French Laundry, the recipes and the stories.

Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind