Q. What inspired or motivated you to become associated with Chef’s for Humanity?

A. I am an UNICEF Ambassador as is Cat Cora the President and Founder of Chefs for Humanity. I agree with the UNICEF focus that the CFH organization has. I am aligned with and have affinity toward the mission choices of hunger, emergency and humanitarian relief and nutritional education that Chefs for Humanity chooses to support. I also thought it was good that Cat and Ming Tsai, Charter Council Chef for the organization, responded significantly to feeding the people impacted by Katrina. It was necessary for our industry to be involved in that effort.

Q. You do a lot of volunteer and charitable activities. With your busy schedule how do you decide which organizations to support?

A. I think it’s important to stay focused on the missions that you choose to support or you can lose your ability to really be effective. UNICEF and Ccap are two organizations that I focus my energies particularly toward. UNICEF was an organization that I felt strongly about supporting after seeing what they do in Ethiopia and the various other needy areas of the world. Ccap is important to me after being an orphan. There are a lot of inner city kids that go into our industry and I feel that it is very important to help them be professional and teach them to cook and dream. To give them a chance.

Q. How did you know that you wanted to make cooking your profession?

A. I suppose that I was really cooking even before I knew I was cooking. As a child I was often working (cooking) with my Grandmother or smoking fish with my uncles. It was part of the background of my childhood really. When I grew older I realized that cooking was something that I had already had a chance to be good at as a professional choice.

Q. What was the first thing you cooked?

A. Turkey with my mother or Gingersnaps with my Grandmother

Q. Who has been the biggest influence on you as a chef?

A. My business partner, Hakan Swahn, who gave me chance to have my own space and creativity when I was very young, just 24. On an ongoing basis I like the creativity and the art that exists in the culinary world. Mark Davis and various other creative individuals are ones that I choose to follow. I am inspired to go down paths of my own from some of their creativity.

Q. Obviously your heritage has influenced your cooking style. So, within your own kitchen, what new flavors and ingredients are you experimenting with these days?

A. African cuisine is becoming mainstream as a cuisine and cultural influence. In my new book, The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa, I introduce these cooking influences. They are foods and flavors that I am also following in my own foods served in my restaurants.

Q. What do you cook at home?

A. I tend to cook things that are very Ethiopian or perhaps something a bit Asian and simple such as noodles.

Q. What does it take to be successful as a chef and restaurateur?

A. I don’t know that I focus on how to be successful. I think you must have a good concept and then remain determined, hardworking, indifferent but yet conscious of what people are enjoying in your restaurants.