Perhaps it was because I grew up in a Chinese restaurant that my parents owned. Perhaps it was because the way that we said,'I love you,' was 'Are you hungry?'. Perhaps it's simply because at heart I am a sensualist. That may truly be closer to the truth. We all have our obsessions, and one of mine is food.

These recipes are some of my favorites. They have been gleaned from a variety of sources and tested out in my kitchen, on my friends and family. They are not good. They are spectacular. That is in the vernacular of the home kitchen. I fully concede that professional chefs in a professional kitchen can work absolute miracles. Personally, when I am at home though, I don't want to work that hard peeling baby vegetables, spending 8 hours making a chicken or veal stock, much less a reduction. That's part of the reason I go to restaurants.

There is another place though, where these recipes have come from and that is home. My father is one of those rare culinary geniuses who can taste something and recreate it. Yet, in the house it was my mother who made the soups and cooked the dishes that took a long time. Not living at home for a long time this was one of the things that I missed the most, her soups.

Family style meals in a Chinese home (at least Cantonese homes) consisted of a whole series of dishes which also included at least one soup. It was usually a clear soup with chinese herbs and a little bit of pork or chicken, and this acted as the liquid for the meal rather than water or wine or milk. Recently I was home and learned firsthand how to make these soups.

Food though, is more than just fuel for the body. It is a tonic for the soul. A well made meal, done with attention and care, nourishes the eye, the spirit and the stomach. Having worked for years in restaurants I have come to believe that people come to restaurants for exactly that nourishment. The x element that transforms bad food to good food or elevates good food into a great meal is our care, intent and love. Yes, love. The best chefs I have ever seen are absolutely passionate and uncompromising about their food. Food is a creation, and it ultimately comes from that place where all creation comes from-the Muses.

I know that one of the times that I most love cooking is when I walk into the kitchen and just have to make a meal with whatever is there. Once you begin to understand how certain items and certain flavors go together then you can begin to dance with the food. Like tomatoes and basil and anchovies and squash and so on. The fundamentals are understanding the base flavors and the dancing is the improvisation on the classic melodies, just like jazz. Baking is another story though. With baking, it is more like classical music. You can still improvise, but you are constrained by much more rigid rules. Vary the flour to salt to yeast to water ratio and you could have a total mess on your hands. So with baking I tend to stick more closely to the recipes, while with cooking I tend to improvise more.