I've been a cook all my life, but I am still learning to be a good chef. I'm always learning new techniques and improving beyond my own knowledge because there is always something new to learn and new horizons to discover.

Simple ingredients prepared in a simple way - that's the best way to take your everyday cooking to a higher level.

The modernity of yesterday is the tradition of today, and the modernity of today will be tradition tomorrow.

I'm always looking to the future and what will next be on the horizon.

I realized very early the power of food to evoke memory, to bring people together, to transport you to other places, and I wanted to be a part of that.

Dragon fruit is very subtle, very delicate. So you want to be careful not to kill it with things that have very strong flavor.

Simple ingredients, treated with respect... put them together and you will always have a great dish.

A cocktail can be made by the bartender. But the cocktail also can be made by the chef.

Today we take New England clam chowder as something traditional that makes our roots as American cooking very solid, with a lot of foundation. But the first person who decided to mix potatoes and clams and bacon and cream, in his own way 100 to 200 years ago, was a modernist.

Education is everything. It's for everyone. We all need to be educated.

It is time to embrace and celebrate ketchup, not be ashamed of it.

I'm sorry for the ducks; I love foie gras.

If you have some potatoes, green beans and cauliflower, you have a heck of a dish that can feed an entire family.

Let me ask you: Who do you prefer, a clown organizing your menu - with all due respect to Mr. McDonald - or a chef? I do believe it's a very simple answer.

The right use of food can end hunger.

I believe in tradition and innovation, authenticity and passion.

Sometimes you need to give dishes a nap.

I mix mayonnaise, ketchup and brandy and a little bit of mustard. This is a heck of a good sauce for seafood.

I don't think anybody can claim success at any part of our lives, private or professional, if there are others that don't enjoy the same opportunities.

As immigrants, we understand better than most that to be an American is a privilege that conveys not just rights but responsibilities.

Standing around the grill is fine, but I like to have my friends come in and out of the house. Movement makes the party more exciting.

As legal residents, immigrants would contribute more in taxes, spend more at our businesses, start companies of their own and create more jobs. Immigration is not a problem for us to solve but an opportunity for America to seize.

A lot of people prefer to be alone. They would rather be a palm tree on an island. I don't get it.

Spain is a fascinating mix of people, languages, culture and food, but if there is one thing all Spaniards share, it's a love of food and drink.

When you become an American, they give you an injection so your accent changes.

When the earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, I was on vacation in the Cayman Islands.

My mother and I were born in Mieres, Asturias, the most beautiful region you'll ever see in Europe and the home of Cabrales, a great blue cheese made in the Asturian mountains. When I was young, we moved to Barcelona. Whenever my mother was homesick for Asturias, she'd eat a little piece of Cabrales to bring her closer to Mieres.

The cheapest gadget - and you don't even have to spend a dime - is chopsticks from a Chinese restaurant. I use them for everything: to toss salads, to turn a piece of meat in the pan, to flip croquettes in the Fryolator, to whisk eggs for omelets, to stir eggs into fried rice when I make that for my daughters.

In Spain, we mainly use red plum tomatoes, but it is always fun to experiment. Try using a mix of colors or substitute green tomatoes for plum next time you make a tomato dish.

Our brain, our body, craves fat. We cannot help it. That's why a kid will eat a hot dog quicker than a piece of broccoli.

Listen to me: Leek is a vegetable. It can be the center of a dish.

Me, I'm an encyclopedia. I'm not a very smart guy, but I'm an encyclopedia. You can ask me about anything you want. Probably I have the book; probably I have a first edition.

In America, diner food or roadside barbecue is the best road food, but I am not a fan of eating while driving - too messy.

Anchovies pair really well with fruit like a nectarines or clementine. The fruit complements the sweetness and saltiness of the anchovy.

My whole life, I have been trying to cook an egg in the right way.

When you go to watch a baseball game, when you go to watch an NBA game, when you watch an NFL game, when you go to watch movies, the offering that those arenas are doing foodwise is 'all the hot dogs you can eat'; all the French fries you can eat; for $20 you can eat 20 hot dogs.

Everyone else in the world still thinks of American food as ketchup.

If you ask me about Napoleon, I'll tell you about his relationship with sugar. And canning - thanks to Napoleon, we have canning.

I work with companies like Audiostiles to put together mixes for my restaurants. I even created a soundtrack for my television show.

Old cookbooks connect you to your past and explain the history of the world.

The time has come to recognize that food, how we produce it, process it, package it, sell it, cook it and eat it, is as important as any other issue.

Anyone who knows me knows that I always like to keep moving.

I always say that I don't believe I'm a chef. I try to be a storyteller.

Women's cooking has always had a big influence on me personally.

I'm a different immigrant. My life is so lucky compared to so many.

After a year, the aromatics in an olive oil are gone. Sometimes the bottles on the shelf in the supermarket are there a lot longer than you are.

As chefs, we cook to please people, to nourish people.

Good things, you can't rush into them.

I guess that from the moment we are fed by our mothers, without even knowing it, we are caught in a net that brings us comfort, something we always feel when a special woman cooks for us. It is something unique and personal - it is something we want to keep for ourselves.

Let me tell you a story about when I was growing up in Spain. Many Sundays, we would invite 30, 40, 50 people to the countryside, and my father would make a big paella. He put me in charge of the fire and the 'stove' - the rocks that hold the pan. But he wouldn't let me cook. I got so unbelievably upset.