Food Representation Quotes

I love food, and I love drawing it, particularly.

'Star Trek' still - I'm kind of intrigued by the way that the standard foods of various non-humans are sometimes portrayed as downright disgusting.

Food is culture. Food is an identity, a footprint of who you are.

All of these concoctions that we think are Mexican, are in no way reflective of the deep, incredibly old, complex and sophisticated deep regional cuisine of Mexico. Or the new modern Mexican cuisine, which has really been exploding over the last few years. I think we just have a completely misrepresented view of how good, how complex these flavors are. I think we could learn a lot more. It's a great cuisine that's really moving forward, faster than any other.

The better the ingredients, the more farmers I can buy from, the closer I feel to the food I want to make that represents what I care about as a chef.

I guess I've always been kind of obsessed with food. I always liked drawing food, and I always liked stories - I think I probably just read somewhere that stories are better if someone's eating in them. I don't know where that came from, but it really stuck, and I always try to put food in.

When you see a picture of a woolly mammoth on a cave wall, that's weirdly similar to a person's lasagna that they thought looked delicious.

I think New York has the most diverse and best quality representation of so many different cuisines at all levels.

Taking dishes straight off the restaurant's menu and putting them into a cookbook doesn't work, because as a chef you have your own vision of what your food is, but you can't always explain it. Or you can't pick recipes that best illustrate who and where you are and what you're doing. And if the recipes don't work, you don't have a book.