The First Book Was Out And For

21 Years Ago When I Started Cooking, To Be A Cook Meant That You Were Going To Stay In The Basement. Being A Chef, You Would Never Be On A Book Tour. You Could Never Dream That 20 Years Later On You Would Be On A Book Tour. It Wasn't A Part Of Your Dreams Because It Was Just Totally Unrealistic. When Did Cooks - Restaurant Cooks, Not Cooks That Have 15,000 Television Shows - When Did Cooks Become Part Of Pop Culture The Way They Are?

I Started To Change. It Was Sort Of A Restaurant Mid-life Crisis, You Could Say. I Lost A Lot Of Confidence, Not So Much As A Father Or As A Friend, But As A Boss, As A Chef That's To Make Decisions Throughout The Day All The Time. I Just Slowly Started Burning Out. Once You Lose Your Confidence Like That, You Start Being Angry In The Kitchen. I Couldn't Recognize Myself Anymore. I Started Writing The Journal. It Was Never Meant To Be A Book, But The Editor At Phaidon Read Parts Of It. As Editors Do, I Guess.

If You See How A Plant Grows And You Taste It In Situ You Have A Perfect Example Of How It Should Taste On The Plate.

But When Spring And Summer Happens, It's Intuition. Everything Is Based On Intuition. There's Not Too Much Time To Overthink, Over-complicate. Those Wild Strawberries, They Might Be There For Two Days.

A Gastronomical Supermeal Didn't Necessarily Have To Involve The Things I Had Brought From Other Top Kitchens.