Star Kitchen: Jean-Georges Vongerichten

With 24 restaurants scattered around the world (Shanghai, the Bahamas, Bora Bora and beyond, plus seven in his hometown, New York City), chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten gets tired of traveling. On rare weekends off, he drives an hour north of the city to his house in Westchester County to unwind with his wife, Marja (a cookbook author and TV host), and their 11-year-old daughter, Chloe.

They share a kitchen, but Jean-Georges and his wife, Marja, have their own appliances: an espresso maker for him and a drip coffee machine for her; a grapefruit juicer for him and an orange juicer for her.

Jean-Georges keeps 30,000 bees in his yard, and they produce about 16 pounds of honey every year. "The taste of the honey changes depending on which flowers are in bloom," he says.

When he's nostalgic for his native Alsace, Jean-Georges grabs one of these ceramic casserole dishes, called a baeckeoffe, and makes a traditional Alsatian meat-and-vegetable stew. "On Sunday mornings, the women used to bring these to the baker,and he cooked the stew in his oven while everyone was at church," he says.

It looks antique, but Jean-Georges' stove is new — and fully loaded. It has a convection oven, gas oven, warming cupboard, gas burners, a traditional French simmer plate and an electric chrome-plate steel plancha grill.