I don't go to Chicago that often, but I find it really beautiful. Everybody's incredibly nice and I had some pretty outstanding meals at Alinea and Avec, which is a restaurant I'm still craving. I'm dying to go back there. I just spent some time in Napa with the chef of Spiaggia, Tony Mantuano, which was pretty cool, so I'm looking forward to eating at his restaurant.

I don't really know the secret to making the perfect deep-dish pizza. I make a style of pizza, but it's not deep-dish. I think it boils down to following the same philosophy as making a regular pizza, just the ratio of crust to sauce and toppings would be different. I've always been craving to do a duck and foie gras pizza with a grated cheese on top of it. My philosophy is, you put the foie gras on top of the pizza and just cook it, it's going to melt. I think that would be fun, and I look for an opportunity to use duck all the time.

I think allowing the chefs to bring their own products is a great idea. It puts them in a position to be able to succeed. Sometimes the odds of the show are stacked against them, and if you have some go to ingredients you can make something work. I wish we could have done that, I would have put some fun stuff together. First off, I would've brought a sexy olive oil and a good amount of specialty Thai ingredients.

I would have liked to try Richard's pizza with the peaches. That sounds like it really wouldn't suck.