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My contribution I hope is to get people to eat full-flavored food. If I could come away with that alone, that would be a fantastic accomplishment. I’m also very proud of being a very American chef.
Obviously, the easiest recipes are the most successful when it comes to the home cook, because they’re not intimidated by them. If I’m doing ‘Boy Meets Grill,’ and I do something very simple like grilled hamburgers or steaks or chicken, those are the most sought-after recipes.
I can’t grill vegetables, shellfish or steaks without tongs. Don’t bother with those long-handled grilling tongs normally found in the BBQ section of your home store. Get intimate with your grill and opt for the regular stainless steel tongs.
I don’t have a long family history of good cooks in my family.
I think cookies are sort of the unsung sweet, you know? They’re incredibly popular. But everybody thinks of cakes and pies and fancier desserts before they think cookies. A plate of cookies is a great way to end dinner and really nice to share at the holidays.
For me, it’s all about moderation. I don’t kick things out of my diet, like carbs. But I’m not going to eat fast food.
If my daughter wants to get into this business, I would support that decision. She’s going to have a hard time not being in it. She loves food and she’s around it all the time.
When I go to a restaurant, I eat three-quarters of the food in front of me. That cuts my calorie intake by 25 percent.
The Food Network’ was just starting in New York, and I was getting lots of attention from Mesa Grill. They had no money, so if you couldn’t get there by subway, you couldn’t be on. It wasn’t like TV was something I really wanted to do – but I knew it would be great publicity for my restaurants.
I wasn’t passionate about food until I’d been cooking for a while. I started long before food became part of the mainstream media. I just wanted to cook, period.