I've always wanted to be someone with credibility, and I want my food to speak for myself.

The food in south India is the food that I really love because it reminds me of home.

I'm encouraged because you pick up any food magazine and there's two or three recipes involving Indian spices.

I'm going to scream this from the mountain top, there's no such thing as 'a curry.' There's six kazillion different kinds of curry. When someone asks how to make chicken curry, I have to ask 'Which one?'

Indian food has been huge in the UK forever and ever, but that's because it has a historical rooting. America, I think is really ripe for it. There's been so much interest in Indian culture.

I started cooking seven years ago for real, and I started with pasta, and lasagna and roast chicken. Very normal American dishes. When I turned on Food Network, or any sort of cooking channel, that's what people were making. So that's where your education comes from.