What were your favorite foods growing up?
Doritos and Chips Ahoy; I think my impetus for cooking was the desire for good food.

What is your least favorite food?
That’s a tough one, I just love everything, I am not a big fan of sea urchin.

What is your beverage of choice?
Champagne or sparkling wine. Or if I had a really rough night in the kitchen, tequila.

What was the most spectacular meal you have ever had?
I had an amazing dinner that will last in my memory forever at the original Bouley in 1991. Perfection!

What do you eat when you are home?
Pasta with butter and cheese

What is your best cooking tip for a home enthusiast?
Season the food as you go; home cooks don’t season enough. I think they are afraid.

Where and when did your career in food begin?
I was the star student in my home economics class, and my teacher introduced me to the Culinary Institute of America; that's where it all started.

When did you decide you wanted to be a chef?
When I was working as a bus girl in a local restaurant in high school.

If you didn’t become a chef, what would you be?
Probably a teacher or some sort of a dancer, maybe a dance teacher?!

Who/what has shaped your cooking the most over the years?
I had a lot of chef mentors, the most influential being Diane Forley.

What influences your cooking style and particularly the menu at the Harrison?
Ingredients are my inspiration. In the summer I can do a different menu every day. There are so many great products to work with!

Which foreign country inspires your style most?
Italy

What is your favorite secret ingredient?
Possibly olive oil, definitely lemon juice; I put it in some applications that people would never detect.

If I'm trying to watch my weight and I'm eating at your restaurant, what am I ordering to eat?
You will start off with the grilled octopus and then have a grilled trout with a salad of parsley root, so clean and delicious!

When you are not eating at your own restaurant…you are eating at?
The Good Fork in Red Hook, Brooklyn

What are some recent dining and culinary trends you have been observing?
Burgers. Wow, everyone is doing a burger joint. How long will that last? Forever. I think just so New Yorkers can debate on which is the best.

What was the most challenging meal you had to make? Why?
Just recently filmed Iron Chef; that was pretty damn challenging, and I don't have to explain why.

What is the one rule or value you try
to instill in all of your staff?
Taste, Taste, Taste!!!!!!!!! If you don't taste the food, you are not doing your job correctly.