A chef and a restaurateur are different jobs: One is about pleasing people with what's on the plate; the other is about understanding the market. I'm a chef, but I think I'm a savvy businessperson, too.

My kitchen in New York City is in the Richard Meier building on Perry Street, so it's ultra-modern: white, glass and transparent. It's 180 square feet, with an induction stove. Everything's hidden, so you don't see the microwave or the fridge.

I arrived in New York in 1986, when I was 28. The market here was nothing. In the Union Square farmers' market, it was a couple of potatoes, everything from California. So the only place I was comfortable shopping was in Chinatown, because it all came from Hong Kong.

Our best hits are real-estate stories, going back to our first, JoJo in 1991.

You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.

I think either you're creative or you're not. In general, I don't think you need to be in pain to actually be creative unless you're writing love songs. Then you might need to have some ups and downs within your emotions to start to capture that.

The imagination is the spur of delights... all depends upon it, it is the mainspring of everything; now, is it not by means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?

I'm a theater actress. I love rehearsal. I could have six weeks of rehearsal and think it's not enough. But on film, you don't get that luxury.