Growing up in Northern California, I've only seen snow at Christmas maybe twice in my life! I was always jealous of my cousins on the East Coast with their white Christmases.

I once saw professional soccer up there in Seattle, the Sounders. I went and saw that. I'm not a big soccer fan, but watching a live game is unbelievable. And then I went to Italy and saw a soccer match; it's something everyone should do once. It'll blow your mind.

Cooking is like snow skiing: If you don't fall at least 10 times, then you're not skiing hard enough.

When you love the competition, the opportunity to achieve at simple but challenging games, some people are really into it, and I'm one of them.

As a kid, I would listen to anything that had a live orchestra or ensemble playing, so that covered everything from show tunes to eclectic jazz things to film soundtracks to classical music. They're all inspiring to me.

In my off-time, I do record. Once in a while, I'll just go into the studio if there's a really good song that I have in my head and want to do. I think, as artists, you're constantly in creative motion. If I stopped writing songs, then that's a part of me that would stop in my life, and I need constant motion.

It's all about the mood I'm in and the scene I'm writing. 'Cause work controls my life, writing controls my life, performing controls my life. So I don't listen to any music that's not an influence on what I'm working on that day. Music is a big influence in my work and sometimes drives the energy of where I want to go.

Ambition is a form of creativity.