I have worked my way up in the food industry being strong and steady about who I am as a person, first and foremost, as a chef and professional, and certainly as a woman.

There are other things that set me off a lot more than what it's like to be a woman in the kitchen.

I like trying to keep as honest and straightforward of a point of view in our kitchen as possible.

I approach life with a 'jump' sort of mentality, although I wasn't raised to take crazy risks. I was raised to be a crazy hard worker. It seems to be a pretty good match of qualities.

I think my biggest heartbreak was when I just couldn't get an American cheese cake/pie with a saltine cracker crust and green tomato sorbet to work out in my favor.

When you taste something delicious, ask for the recipe! Or offer to trade a recipe!

Out of culinary school, I worked as a pastry cook in amazing restaurants for years. I ended up leaving the pastry cook scene because, though I loved the industry, the restaurants and the chefs I worked for so much, I had to be honest with myself. I was never going to be them.

I like to move around a lot - I'm a big runner, and I often get on a bike and ride from meeting to meeting.

I love a good challenge of looking with new eyes at a tried and true recipe in my recipe Rolodex.

My family, as you can probably guess, was more into Christmas cookies and not so much the fruitcake.

If you're coming to dinner at our house, you know you're gonna be well-fed.

Fruitcakes have a bad rap.

I love roasted pecans. I'll make a sort of granola with the roasted pecans, turn that into a super nutty pie crust, and top that with apple-syrup pudding and top that with cooked custard and maple syrup.

I love feeling exhausted after a good, hard, honest day's work.

I don't watch what I eat, because the concept seems exhausting to me.

My first season of 'MasterChef' was tricky. I took a risk going into TV. I was confident it was the right risk and confident I'd break down barriers as the first female judge - and one that was previously only known for the sweeter side of the kitchen.

When you open any kind of food service establishment, you do all this planning, but it's not until you've opened the door and people are inside that you learn what people want you to be to them.

The hardest thing to do is dig deep and be patient about the things you're going to learn month to month and quarter to quarter.

I love checking out aspiring bakers' offerings at local farmers' markets when the weather is nice.

Both of my parents worked incredibly hard, and eating out was a treat.

Most of my memories are of softball games in Falls Church with my sister, yard sales across town on the weekends with my grandma, grocery-shopping and errand-running with my mom, learning to drive an old Volkswagen bug down Old Keene Mill Road with my dad.

I was raised by a gaggle of women who all loved to bake. Dessert always existed after any savory meal. I was raised with cookies on the plate, brownies in a Tupperware container, and so on.

I didn't want a desk job; I knew I'd get bored.

I think the cereal milk is my most proud achievement.

I think sharing recipes is such an important part of baking and the baking world.

I could never really decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, and for a while, I thought that maybe I wanted to be a writer... I've always loved to write, that form of expression.

I feel like a million bucks when I get to work and I've already exercised.

Simple jewelry is best - bigger pieces get in the way when I'm baking.

Running shouldn't feel like a punishment or an obligation. It should be a treat.

I went to college, and I didn't want to be in a sorority, so I started working in restaurants. In my mind, that was my social outlet.

I never saw the light of day at Bouley. I remember I would bring home a roll of toilet paper a week because we got paid so little, if at all.

I took a Chinatown bus to New York to enroll in the International Culinary Center's pastry program.

I went to culinary school to eat.

Simple syrup doesn't taste like anything.

I live and die by my SodaStream. I love sparkling water. When you're eating all the time, the bubbles are nice to help settle your stomach.

I was raised by my Depression-era grandma who taught me to use what you've got: Waste not, want not!

Whenever I get in a car and I'm going to or from the airport or the train station, I put on a TED Talk using the TED app. It makes the trip go by super fast, and it fills my sails.

When I first opened Milk Bar, I was also making desserts for the Momofuku restaurants. I will say that by day three or day four, I realized that operating a bakery was so different from operating a restaurant.

Fashion is a way to transform yourself. By choosing your own silhouette and shape, you can constantly change who you are.

Queer is about intense questioning that can't be made nice and glossy.

I don't remember my 20s as a good place.

For some people, it's impossible to escape binaries.

The way I dress definitely helps me embody and actually change my way of behaving and feel more confident.

My words are my sword.

Dancing, for me, is like a second language. It's the best way for me to get out of my shell and be expressive in a very personal way.

I love people who go on stage and blossom like a weird flower.

For me, everything is a performance.

I know that a song is working when I can properly dance on it.

It's always odd to me when people say, 'Where does Heloise finish and Chris start?' It's the same thing. I'm just putting a theatrical form to my expression.

For me, the male gaze is oppressive. And I hope if we are building a female gaze that it's inclusive, and it's about pure desire and not how I want people to look in order for them to be desired by me.