Johnny Iuzzini

“I love biscuits. I have a real thing for a biscuits, and if it's not made right, I'm gonna come down hard on somebody.”

“When I was growing up, chocolate milk was a treat, and the chocolate milk that ended up in a bowl of Cocoa Puffs when I had those for breakfast was the biggest treat of all.”

“Plain sugar cookies, no matter how well they are made, are a bit boring to me.”

“My dad said, 'If you want to go out with girls and go out with your friends, get a job.' I found one at the local country club as a pot washer in the kitchen.”

“I prefer dark chocolate. I like French over Belgian... Valrhona is the best.”

“Cooking is about imbibing different cultures and putting them in a plate on the table.”

“As kids, my mom would always let us help bake, and if we behaved, we got to lick the beaters clean.”

“Everyone has days when things can go wrong. That doesn't make you a bad pastry chef - that makes you human.”

“The inspiring thing is that people are often more experimental with their desserts than other courses. It allows me to be more creative and excite people.”

“I have pictures of me feeding deer and possums with baby bottles. I am such an animal lover.”

“At one point, in one of the kitchens where I worked, I was the only American pastry cook. They treated me poorly. 'You're stupid. You're American. You don't get it.' They'd speak French all day. At one point, my boss said to me, 'You learn French or get out right away.'”

“If you take everything personally and to heart, it will tear you apart. Take criticism, learn, adjust, and move on.”

“TV has taken a crazy turn, especially in the industry of food, where everything is either a competition show or a sort of reality show. We've lost the kind of shows that are, like, 'Here's how you do this,' like the old Julia Child shows.”

“I want to do more TV and more books. I want to have my hand in different projects. I'm way too hyper; I'm just one of those people who has to have a lot going on.”

“Both my parents worked. So it wasn't like the previous generation where we learned how to cook and bake from our mothers and grandmothers.”

“I have been a fan of the Beastie Boys ever since I can remember. I have a ton of their music on my iPod and even still have a t-shirt from a show I saw when I was a kid.”

“Whenever a chef cooks for his own ego rather than his guests, he/she set themselves up for ridicule and failure. In the end, it's the service industry. Our goal is to make our guests happy through our cooking.”

“I fell in love with pastry because I felt I could be much more creative. It's precise, and you don't have to kill anything.”

“I'm very much half city and half country boy.”

“A savory chef must first master his knife skills and understand the basics of sauces and soups, etc., before he/she may move on to become a great chef. It is no different for pastry chefs. If you do not have a strong foundation and are a master of the basics, then you will never be that strong - you will never be a master of the trade - period.”