You grew up in New York City, your mom is a famous cookbook editor, and your dad is a talented home cook, right? “My parents definitely played into my career choice! My mother and father were always cooking. They generally didn’t cook together: Dad would make traditional Italian-American and Chinese food as a hobby, and my mother was all about the James Beard, Julia Child, Craig Claiborne stuff. Mom was always the type to take two buses and a subway to get the special bottle of balsamic vinegar. Everything was about quality ingredients.”

How did you first learn to cook? “Learning anything, you start as a spectator, and I don’t think we talk about that enough. I’d help Mom peel potatoes, knead bread, stuff like that. But my mom is a perfectionist, so I didn’t ever make anything from A to Z. But then when I graduated from Barnard College, I got a job at Larry Forgione’s restaurant, An American Place, and it’s the guys there who really taught me the fundamentals. How to cook a steak and not cut your hand off—those kind of fundamentals. That plus working for six years at Restaurant Guy Savoy in France.”