The thing about all my food is that everything is a remembered flavor. Maybe it's something I had as a child or maybe it's something I had in Milan but I want it to taste better than you ever thought.

I would say stay the hell away from the party scene. Anything you put in front of your goal and especially something like that whether it's too much gambling too much food too much cold beers on the weekend - anything that you put in front of the prize is going to end up getting in the way and hurting you in the end.

'The Food Network' was just starting in New York and I was getting lots of attention from Mesa Grill. They had no money so if you couldn't get there by subway you couldn't be on. It wasn't like TV was something I really wanted to do - but I knew it would be great publicity for my restaurants.

Cookbooks have all become baroque and very predictable. I'm looking for something different. A lot of chefs' cookbooks are food as it's done in the restaurants but they are dumbed down and I hate it when they dumb them down.

When you cut that eggplant up and you roast it in the oven and you make the tomato sauce and you put it on top your soul is in that food and there's something about that that can never be made by a company that has three million employees.

My Food Network shows 'Emeril Live' and 'Essence of Emeril ' are not in production right now but I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily leaving Food Network. I have a lot of television still in me. I enjoy teaching people so it's just a matter of time before I do something new.

Cats are very independent animals. They're very sexy if you want. Dogs are different. They're familiar. They're obedient. You call a cat you go 'Cat come here.' He doesn't come to you unless you have something in your hand that he thinks might be food. They're very free animals and I like that.

People love their animals so much so that they put little clothes on them and necklaces and booties and things like that. And if you love your animal then you should feed them something that's not dangerous for them. There's a lot of poisonous stuff that they're putting in a lot of that food those by-products.

You know if I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough I would be convinced we're in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we've got to do something about the unemployed.

I love food and feel that it is something that should be enjoyed. I eat whatever I want. I just don't overeat.

Gluttony is an emotional escape a sign something is eating us.

I have always maintained a high level of fitness and that is why I am still able to handle the demands of playing in the Premiership. People have always commented on my fitness and it's something I pride myself on.

Now I say that if you run more than 15 miles a week it's for something other than aerobic fitness. Once you pass 15 miles you do not see much further improvement.

For me triathlons were something that was down to me and my fitness. Now I really enjoy the pain in the triathlon of chasing someone down. It's a bit like chasing down Nico Rosberg in the last few laps at Silverstone - it makes you feel alive.

I'm not in the best shape but I want to prove to myself I can do something that seems insurmountable and inspire others by showing them no matter where they are in their fitness goals they can do it too.

If I don't feel confident about my body I'm not going to sit at home and feel sorry for myself and not do something about it. It's all about taking action and not being lazy. So you do the work whether it's fitness or whatever. It's about getting up motivating yourself and just doing it.

Once in a while I'll get moved to do some exercise. It's something I long for but the biggest problem is bending down and putting my tennis shoes on. Once I go out I'm OK.

To be fair lying is part and parcel of public life. Every politician has lied about something because they are owned by the special interest groups that finance their elections.

Look Congress has allocated more money to finance the upcoming Iraqi elections than it has for the American elections. There's something wrong with that.

I think interviews can be fine. It's just there's this terrible fear of coming off wrongly or saying something that gets taken out of context.

What I think we fear is rapid pronounced and uncontrollable changes to ourselves and because of this we have a form of personality inertia - something that resists rapid change.

If the markets had behaved badly that would obviously add to people's sense of alarm... but there has been a lot of reassurance coming particularly in the way the Brits handled all this. There seems to be no great fear that something like that is going to happen here.

There's so much fear involved in trying to do something you don't know how to do that drugs and alcohol can become a big part of your life if you have an addictive personality or are very unsure which most songwriters are.

Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us that is taught to us when we are very very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.