Alain Ducasse

If I had the choice to travel to two places in Europe, it would be Paris and London.

I travel the world, and I can see in Toronto the cooking is very personal. These people cook with their hearts.

Given the number of restaurants I have, I could easily travel all the time - but I try not to.

When you grow up close to poultry and fields and gardens and open-air markets, you can't help but develop an instinct for quality food.

I would never be able to lead the insane lifestyle I do, traveling all over the world, if I wasn't eating food that was simple and healthy.

I only get fat when I eat food cooked by other chefs. At home, my wife does all the cooking. She makes simple things like soups and salads. We both like steamed tofu.

Food is one part of the experience. And it has to be somewhere between 50 to 60 percent of the dining experience. But the rest counts as well: The mood, the atmosphere, the music, the feeling, the design, the harmony between what you have on the plate and what surrounds the plate.

The most classic French dessert around the holidays is the Christmas log, with butter cream. Two flavors. Chocolate and coconut. My first job in the kitchen when I was a boy was to make these Christmas logs.

My grandmother did all the cooking at Christmas. We ate fattened chicken. We would feed it even more so it would be big and fat.

In France, Christmas is a family holiday. You stay home. New Year's Eve is when you go out.

Failure is enriching. It's also important to accept that you'll make mistakes - it's how you build your expertise. The trick is to learn a positive lesson from all of life's negative moments.

If you don't treat an ingredient and its flavors with respect - if you drown it in oil, for instance - you'll spoil it.