I realized I didn't want to be a photographer. I gave it up, but I still worked that job in the restaurant and I found myself constantly hanging out in the kitchen.

That being said, I often write into recipes techniques I learned in the restaurant kitchen. There are ways of organizing your prep and so on that are immensely useful. Those are woven into all the recipes I do.

I'm a serious eater and a seriously hungry person, so I set out on that path to figure it out for myself, and of course it really resonated with other people.

The restaurant chefs in Spain are breaking ground, but in terms of the everyday cooking in Spain I still hear people coming back and saying they were disappointed. I think it's because they're expecting the chef stuff.

I was aiming for the cooks that I've talked to by teaching an online course and by traveling, listening to people who are really busy and harried but want to be cooking.

Often for hors d'oeuvres, I serve room temperature vegetables, something like that, so that the main course might be quite rich but the first course has balanced it out.