Most people who open restaurants will fail, because they lack the fundamental understanding of restaurant math. Either they think they're superstar cooks or they think they're superstar hosts.

At Babbo, each dish grew out of a conversation, trying to put something forth that was new and different. It was a combination of culinary adventurism and the dining-room experience with respect for the classic but with an eye toward innovation. And it was about eating locally, whether produce or fish or meat.

MasterChef' is the search for America's culinary amateur talent, so this is a search for the best home cook in America, and it's our job to figure out who that is.

I think a lot of people overlook the importance of the menu as a marketing tool and a way of communicating to the customer what the ambition of their restaurant is. Not only the typeface and the design, but what is it printed on? Is it cheap-looking? Is it the right kind of paper for that restaurant?

Right before the Bush inauguration, many women were greatly reassured when Laura said of Roe v. Wade on the 'Today' show, 'No, I don't think it should be overturned.' Three days later, her husband reimposed the 'global gag rule' on groups abroad that receive U.S. funding for family planning.

I like stand-up. But I'd also like a family and house and a yard. I want to work with a lot of people, have colleagues; and on good film sets, there's people there that work with the same people for years and years. I love that collaborative spirit in that medium. Comedy is a lot more solitary.

When I talk about my artist parents, people imagine a bohemian environment and think, 'Aha, so that's where he gets it from!' But we were as white, straight, and middle-class as the next family on our white, straight, middle-class housing estate.

I am a young woman, with a regional accent, from a working class family, who has had a pretty standard education. So far, so ordinary. But in the places I've worked, one or more of these things would put me in the minority.