The journey is part of the experience - an expression of the seriousness of one's intent.

For those with restless, curious minds, fascinated by layer upon layer of things, flavors, tastes and customs, which we will never fully be able to understand, Tokyo is deliciously unknowable. I’m sure I could spend the rest of my life there, learn the language, and still die happily ignorant.

I'm not looking to freak people out-eating rodents or bugs. I don't do that anymore

The days of predatory poets in search of literary inspiration and young flesh are probably over for good. Hippies can just as easily get their bong rips in Portland or Peoria. But the good stuff, the real good stuff, the sounds and smells and the look of Tangier, what you see and hear when you look out the window and take it all in, that's here to stay.

A burger is something anyone can do, just follow the rules.

The journey changes you...It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body.

Travel isn't always pretty. It isn't always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that's okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.

Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.

I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime associates, food, for me, has always been an adventure.

Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get go.