I travel a lot, but I'd love to go back to cities such as Paris, Las Vegas, New York, and London with my family. When I'm there touring with the band, I have to work, and it's no fun at all.
There are three capitals of entertainment in the world: Las Vegas, New York and London. So far the only one I truly conquered is Vegas. New York and London are still on my checklist.
I can be much more creative with my menus in the casino cities. In New York, there are certain things I can't make. In Las Vegas, they're much more receptive. Rabbit, some seafoods - they won't necessarily do well in New York, but I'll try them in Las Vegas, and they'll be a success.
We were going to do 'Reno 911!: New York, New York, Las Vegas,' which was like a 'Die Hard' set not in New York, but in the New York, New York casino in Las Vegas. We were really excited about being locked into the one casino and doing a bad action movie.
Sometimes I live in Paris for a couple of months, then I have a job some place, and then I come back to New York. I guess my base is New York-ish, 'cause my family is here. But my husband's family is all in Paris, so we try to spend a lot of time there, also. Especially now that we have Rose.
Whatever New York loses, if you go to other cities around the world, or around the country, New York still has a kind of energy level you find nowhere else. Paris doesn't have it, London doesn't have it, San Francisco, a great city, doesn't have it.
Guests love to be 'wowed' in Las Vegas. They enjoy and embrace new tastes, new flavors, and they come to expect the unexpected in Las Vegas.
I had a big troupe, a big army and it was a lot of fun. And, after 10 years of that, I just decided that I wanted to travel and do special dates. I go to Las Vegas these days.
When I first went to Las Vegas, I thought I would never go to Las Vegas; you can't get anything. But then I realized that they were trucking in almost everything; you could get a lot of your product, and I think that's why a lot of chefs actually went there.
Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual.
I go to Las Vegas--or at least I went to Las Vegas--because even though I knew everything that was sinister, calculating, and evil about it, I loved Las Vegas. Only in Vegas could I dare to fantasize that I was a Friend of Frank. Or that I was throwing the dice at Dino's favorite table. Or that I might luck out and sip bourbon with Rickles after his last lounge show. The D.I. oozed that kind of heady fantasy.
I believe what makes cooking in Las Vegas different from cooking in most other cities are the guests that dine with you in Las Vegas.
As far as cities, I love London. I go to London very often because I think the young people there are very creative. I also love New York, of course, and the clash of different cultures you find there.
I live in Manhattan but travel all around the world; I moved to Paris when I was 16; I lived in London twice. It's kind of like, if I want to move somewhere, I don't have anything holding me back. I don't have children. If I wanna live in a certain place, I'll go. But I've lived everywhere, and I prefer New York to everything.
I love Las Vegas. I like that Las Vegas has everything. Everything and anything you want to do, you can do in Las Vegas. You can pretty much do it all day and all night if you want to.
In Las Vegas, people seem to believe, the prosperity spawned by tourism and gaming can make them whole, financially and spiritually. Las Vegas now melds fun, work, and wealth, showing a path toward the brightest vistas of the post-industrial world. It is the first city of the twenty-first century.
The guys have a lot of good cars built up. We're going to do some more testing before we go back to Las Vegas and try to win at Vegas again. We need to get off to a quick start.