Six words to describe your food: Passionate, simple, clean, honest, modern and consistent.

Ten words to describe you: Lucky, hardworking, comedic, aggressive, opinionated, karmic, determined, provocative and thoughtful.

Favorite ingredient: It changes according to my mood, but right now it's Cure Organic Farm's cauliflower, because it provides countless possibilities to take center stage or assume the role of a supporting character. The last thing I did at Luca was a brown-butter cauliflower purée with mushroom ravioli.

Most overrated ingredient: Spinach. It doesn't have the crunch or spicy bite of, say, kale, Swiss chard or rapini. Spinach is overused, fairly flavorless and produced on a scale that's way too mass for me to respect.

Most undervalued ingredient: Lard is inexpensive, abundant, easily rendered from scratch, and it imparts that rich, nutty, sweet pork flavor to anything lucky enough to soak in it.

Favorite local ingredient: That always changes, but right now, it's a red tomato from Jay Hill Farm, near Boulder, that they taste-tested and bred purely to enhance the flavor of bacon. That tomato makes the best BLT ever.

Rules of conduct in your kitchens: Be creative, express yourself on a plate rather than with words, and don't be the hack that uses tongs.

What's never in your kitchens? Shorts or jeans. It's just not professional.