Let me tell you a story about when I was growing up in Spain. Many Sundays, we would invite 30, 40, 50 people to the countryside, and my father would make a big paella. He put me in charge of the fire and the 'stove' - the rocks that hold the pan. But he wouldn't let me cook. I got so unbelievably upset.

I don't know any group of professionals that mobilize as fast and as often as chefs do when there are people who are in need.

I don't think anybody can claim success at any part of our lives, private or professional, if there are others that don't enjoy the same opportunities.

I love cooking for the sake of understanding how people before me used to feed themselves, used to feed their families.

The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent.

The suburb in the 1950s was a bedroom community. The father worked in the city, and the mother stayed home. Now people live and work in the suburbs, and businesses have grown up or moved from cities to certain pockets of what was once the suburbs and created these places that are like cities.

My father died when I was young, and after he did, my mother had it tough. Very tough.

What I do say is, yes, children may be resilient and they have been able to deal with all sorts of difficulties they have faced, but the bottom line is this: I believe very strongly children need a mother and a father in the home.