Becoming the first Indian woman to compete on Food Network's 'Iron Chef' and 'Next Iron Chef' was really a great accomplishment and led to my spot as a judge on 'Chopped.'
I went from two stars to one star to two stars to three. In the history of the 'Michelin Guide,' I don't think there has been any chef to go up and down - and then up again.
When I wrote 'Fast Food My Way' in 2004, I hoped that my friends would prepare my recipes. Now, more people cook from that book than any other I've written in the past 30 years.
I enjoy what I do because it keeps evolving - when I was a cook, I wanted to be a chef de partie; when I was a chef de partie, I wanted to be a chef; when I was a chef, I wanted to be a restaurateur, and now I am a chef entrepreneur. I am still fulfilling my dream.
Sham Harga had run a successful eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit, and realizing that most of his customers wanted meals properly balanced between the four food groups: sugar, starch, grease, and burnt crunchy bits.
The level of competition on 'Iron Chef' was very intense. In fact, I feel like the show provides chefs with a stamp of approval and in many ways lets them know that 'they've arrived.' It was a tough journey, to say the least, but in the end, it provided me with an example how hard work and persistence pays off.
I opened Leith's in Notting Hill in 1969 and it eventually worked its way into being awarded a Michelin star. At the time, there were a few women running small bistros - but I was the first woman to have a 'serious,' expensive restaurant.
Many of them have accomplished a lot before they ever get to 'Top Chef' although they're not well known. The show just provides them with a platform. There's just one winner and on some seasons you can get numerous chefs that are really good. Even if they don't win, they're all talented.
I am well aware that a chef is only as good as his last meal.
The opportunity to be a star chef, to imagine it would be here in Las Vegas, I couldn't comprehend it.
The English will agree with me that there are plenty of good things for the table in America; but the old proverb says: 'God sends meat and the devil sends cooks.'
If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that's exactly what I did.
In 1990 at Harveys, when I was 28 years old, I became the youngest chef to win two Michelin stars. It was a huge achievement.
I've been in New York for 15 months. Winning two stars in the Zagat number one best newcomer within ten months of opening in New York has taught me a big lesson.
Essentially, for me, the whole point of being a chef is to have your own restaurant.
Nobody makes art for an elite, not if they're a real artist. You try and reach as many people as possible with whatever it is that you make. If a chef is making an omelette, he wants everyone to think that it tastes great because he did it. And if it does, then that's a success because everyone eats it.
My journey was never hard; it just happened. From the second I held a knife, from the second I was in culinary school, it's all felt too good to be true. 'This cannot be my job, my life. Somebody has to be kidding with me!'
I loved the minute I realized I was good at cooking. Like, I had a moment - I made a roasted chicken, and I remember watching people's faces as they ate it, and I thought at that time, 'Oh, I am good at this.'
At the root of many a woman's failure to become a great cook lies her failure to develop a workmanlike regard for knives.
I wanted to disprove the notion that you couldn't open a great restaurant in a casino.
I never knew I would go this far, but I was told by people it wouldn't happen, and now I own four restaurants, and I have one of the best shows on the Food Network. I'm living in the Super Bowl of food.
I think the cereal milk is my most proud achievement.
Chefs become attracted to being able to get product and then clientele - those are the two things that attract you as a chef.
That's the problem. Anyone can go and buy a restaurant. I want to be at that f - ing dinner party where they say, "Hey, Bill, your food's great. You should buy yourself a restaurant." That's not right. Taking it less personally.
One thing I always say is being a great chef today is not enough - you have to be a great businessman.
