Two words to improve any dish. Ba, Con
Cooking for people is an enormously significant expression of generosity and soulfulness.
Cooking for people is an enormously significant expression of generosity and soulfulness, and entertaining is a way to be both generous and creative. You're sharing your life with people. Of course, it's also an expression of your own need for approval and applause. Nothing wrong with that.
People want honest, flavourful food, not some show-off meal that takes days to prepare.
To me, the kitchen is a place of adventure and entirely fun, not drudgery. I can't think of anything better to do with family and friends than to be together to create something.
What I bring to the table is a huge enthusiasm and love for this stuff.
I think that curiosity happened on these reviews where I was just a guest of the reviewer, because it introduced me to new cuisines and to the idea of cooking as a mechanism for studying other cultures and understanding other parts of the world.
You know the great irony is that people think you have to have money to enjoy fine food, which is a shame.
I'm a home cook and love to read about food, but I'm not trained as a chef. I'm just really into cooking and passionate about it.
I like to have friends in the kitchen and make a big mess and use every pot in the kitchen.
I went in saying I wanted to be the food guy.
When I come home from a shoot, I'd rather reheat food I've made than eat takeout.
Well, we don't take money from people and then show the product. It has to be a product that we like anyway, and that's true for all five of us, which is one of the really nice things about the way we make the show.
I really have a great deal of humility in that department, and a great deal of respect for people who spend their lives learning how to make these amazing preparations.
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is a form of service journalism. To be successful, I think it has to be a combination of a good story, it has to be funny, and it also needs to be packed with useful information.
Cooking allows you to have travels, adventures and journeys without going anywhere. The running joke between my partner and me is that I'm not really concerned about how long it takes, or how much I destroy the kitchen, because I just have such a good time doing it.
However, I was a restaurant critic at Chicago magazine before I worked at Esquire, and I've been a really enthusiastic home cook for a long time. It's just something I'm passionate about.
Buying stock is exactly the same thing as going to a casino, only with no cocktail service.
Because the show is popular, people do recognize us on the streets.
Planning a dinner party in a way that you're actually capable of getting it done without panicking is important. It's bad hospitality for the host to be freaked out.
My place in Chicago is a 105 year old house, but I really like contemporary spaces too, so it's refreshing and fun to be in a space where you can do contemporary things.
In recent years, I've been writing because I'm fortunate enough to work in the world of food television, to travel and taste and learn about cooking from the best chefs in the business.
One of the smartest things you can do on 'Chopped' is to take one of those ingredients and make a pickle out of it, because almost every dish benefits from that. I'm feeling like those intuitions are becoming more natural.
Oh, did I tell you I have a cookbook? I have a cookbook deal.
The best way to learn is live, in person, cooking, feeling, smelling and tasting, but TV is the second-best thing to that; it's a halfway facsimile.
