Inspiration is one thing. Stealing is another.

People underestimate the power of the root vegetable.

My curiosity and love for food started at an early age. My mother was a working mom, so I learned to whip up sweet and savory food using everyday pantry and grocery store ingredients that required little supervision.

You can't do a good deal with bad people, and you can't do a bad deal with good people. I often use that as my compass.

Be your own biggest critic. Don't let someone else beat you to constructive criticism.

Any team member, any community member wants and needs to know they count, that they're welcome, and that they're important.

When I opened Milk Bar in November 2008, I was quite adamant about making sure the bakery was an honest reflection of life and food through my eyes. I had no intention beyond that.

I make a huge batch of cinnamon buns on Christmas Eve and bake them off early Christmas morning.

Whether I'm making a gluten-free cookie or a lactose-free milkshake, my end goal is always to make it so awesome, clever, and creative that you'll want to indulge whether you have a sensitivity, dietary nuance, or don't.

I guess technically I am a female chef, but I don't really think of myself as such.

There are so many messages out there about what you should be eating and drinking and what you should be putting in your body at the beginning of the day. It's confusing, and people get very overwhelmed. Really, one of the greatest options is just a bowl of cereal and milk.

I like to be in over my head always, at all times.

Eating together was a big part of my upbringing and a tradition we keep daily amongst the amazing team at Milk Bar.

I love cookbooks. I certainly have my fair share at home, but I'm a really funny cookbook person: I don't really ever cook out of cookbooks. I like cookbooks for the commentary or the pictures or the history.

I feel like a lot of the pastry chefs and chefs I worked for and worked under were always really, really big on the philosophy of 'everyone's in it together in the food world.'

When I was about to graduate, I asked myself, 'What could you do every day and never get sick of?' My answer was really simple: Make cookies.

Baking without gluten is an awesome challenge in terms of the opportunity to learn so much more about what you can create.

As a chef, I got into this because I love the creative energy and I love the science, but I also love to feed people and make them happy.

Nothing could be lovelier than running across the Golden Gate Bridge in the middle of the fog.

I have this nook at Milk Bar that's my office, and my desk was just full of every box of Kellogg's cereal, and at different times during the day, I would open up a box, eat a bowl of cereal, and I live in a world of Post-it notes, so I would leave tasting notes on all the cereal.

I need healthy options around, or else if I get hungry, I'll go straight for a cookie.

I love the warmth of apple pie.

There is no right or wrong way to pair or prepare a dessert. Follow your instincts, edit, and taste-tweak-taste until you get it just right!

I was an infamously picky eater as a child but also had an infamous sweet tooth. All I wanted was dessert for every meal of the day.