I lurched away from the table after a few hours feeling like Elvis in Vegas - fat, drugged, and completely out of it.

I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates,' food, for me, has always been an adventure

I'm a decent cook; I'm a decent chef. None of my friends would ever have hired me at any point in my career. Period.

I love the masochistic aspect of eating seething, real Sichuan food in Sichuan Province.

I'll make fun of the French, thank you very much.

Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.