I opened my own restaurant when I was 17. I went broke then traveled around the country learning about different kinds of foods had three other restaurants that went broke. It didn't all start just a few years ago!

However I was a restaurant critic at Chicago magazine before I worked at Esquire and I've been a really enthusiastic home cook for a long time. It's just something I'm passionate about.

But as far as Twitter I'll be in a restaurant and I'll get home and somebody tweeted and they talked about what I ordered and what I was wearing. In some cases that could be dangerous because you don't want everybody to know where you are every second of every day.

Although the skills aren't hard to learn finding the happiness and finding the satisfaction and finding fulfillment in continuously serving somebody else something good to eat is what makes a really good restaurant.

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.

Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant?

I don't think it's a good advert for any restaurant a fat chef and secondly who wants to eat a dessert when the chef's a fat pig.

I launched The Emeril Lagasse Foundation to provide culinary training and developmental and educational programs to children in the cities where my restaurants operate. I think everyone has a responsibility to give back to the community if they can and to help future generations learn new skills.

It's funny how I use social media because I don't use it to promote my restaurants that much. I use it for social issues and I think that's what it's for. I do a few things - I mess around with music a lot because that's a passion of mine. If something strikes me and I want to share it I do.

The funny thing is people won't let me pay for things. I'll be in a restaurant and the manager will say 'Oh no it's on the house.'