I love the culture of grilling. It creates an atmosphere that is festive but casual.
Bobby Flay
Go vegetable heavy. Reverse the psychology of your plate by making meat the side dish and vegetables the main course.
A molcajete is a stone mortar and pestle from Mexico. They're great for grinding spices and making salsa and guacamole because they give everything a nice coarse and rustic feel. I've never collected anything, but I think I might start collecting these because each one is decorated differently.
Grilling takes the formality out of entertaining. Everyone wants to get involved.
It's important to have balance in your life between work and play.
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.
Grilling outside with my parents at the Jersey shore. We would grill lobster and corn in the summer.
I live in New York and I'm in New York basically all the time. I spend a lot of my time in my restaurants, and I feel like that's why they're successful.
Charcoal or gas. Both give excellent results, so choose the one that best suits your style of cooking.
'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 was hired as a sous-chef at a restaurant on the Upper East Side. The chef liked to drink - some mornings we would find him sleeping. Two weeks after its opening, I became the chef. I was 20 years old, and way over my head. I had to hire the cooks and do the menus.
I don't like to dump the dressing on top of the greens. Instead, I pour it against the side of the bowl - using only enough to glaze the leaves - then toss.
Nothing goes perfectly, especially when you're opening a restaurant.
Even if the chef has a good business head, his focus should be behind kitchen doors. A business partner should take care of everything in front of the kitchen doors.
I prefer lump charcoal over briquettes but I do use both for different reasons and different recipes and sometimes I combine them both when I really want the woodsy aroma from the lump charcoal and long, even heat from the briquettes.
Lime juice makes things taste fresher. I use it for drinks, salsas, relishes, soups, and sauces. You want some give to your limes - firmness means the inside is dry - and they'll stay softer longer if you don't refrigerate them.
I can't be on the cheeseburger diet all the time.
When people pile seven things onto one burger, it drives me nuts!
Cook ingredients that you are used to cooking by other techniques, such as fish, chicken, or hamburgers. In other words be comfortable with the ingredients you are using.
Brushes are crucial for applying glazes, sauces, and oils. The pastry brushes that you find in homestores can be pricey so pay a visit to your local hardware store and pick up a few paint brushes which are less expensive and work equally as well.
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.
I love working with big flavors like chiles and smoke. Honey is perfect for softening the edges, mellowing them out a bit. I put it in everything - vinaigrettes, soups, stocks, salsas, so I'm always on the hunt for great honey.
Don't try to be the next Rachael Ray or Bobby Flay, we already have those people. We want someone who is going to make their own mark on 'Food Network.'
A grill is just a source of heat. Just like a stove, it is very user-friendly.
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.
Most of the time, I grill over high heat. I like things to move fast. I like the sound and smell of a very hot fire. I gravitate towards dishes that you can get on and off the grill as quickly as possible. After a while, you'll know without thinking about it how hot the fire is.
I probably use my chef's knives more than any other tool in the kitchen. I'm not married to a particular brand, because they all work, they all have sharp blades.
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 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.
Chipotles to me are a one-of-a-kind pepper because they're smoked jalapenos, so they're fiery and they're smoky. It's good to use chipotles in salsas or soups or condiments - that works really well. To me, they always really pick up anything you put them in.
I work out to eat.
One of the things that happens in my house on the holidays is after dessert, we sit down to a very ambitious men-versus-women game of Trivial Pursuit. It's brutal. And there's a trophy.
The process and the great smells it produces make everyone hungry and get everyone's mouth watering. And it gives men a chance to cook.
Habaneros have a great fruity flavor, but the challenge is that you have to deflect the heat in order to taste the flavor. If you don't, you're dead. They should really have a warning sign on them. Deflect the habanero's heat by pairing it with sweet food.
I love using gas grills because they are easier to heat and it's much easier to control the flames with a gas grill than with a charcoal fire. Grilling is not just about lighting a fire.
Nobody believed the 'Food Network' could last. Even I was short sighted and thought to myself, 24 hours of food on TV? They'll run out of things to talk about in four days! But that wasn't true. 'Food Network' continues to get better and evolve.
My partner and I are looking at several locations on Park Avenue South and Midtown for a new restaurant space.
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.
An instant-read thermometer is your best bet for making sure that meat and fish are cooked to the proper temperature.
When I'm on television, I think that I appeal to the everyday guy, 'cause that's who I am. The guys who go to the football games on the weekends are my viewers, for sure.
Don't underestimate the importance of having enough room to work. Grilling is much more relaxing when you are not trying to juggle a whole collection of plates and bowls as you do it. If your grill doesn't have enough workspace - and they almost never do - set up a table right next to your grill.
I guess I fell into cooking.
I dropped out of high school. I really had no interest in doing any school work whatsoever.
It is very important that when you put something on the grill, you leave it in place to cook. If you move it around too quickly, chances are it is going to stick.
When I'm hiring a cook for one of my restaurants, and I want to see what they can do, I usually ask them to make me an omelette.
My feeling is that if you can cook, I can teach you how to do television.
There are so many great things about this business. Almost everybody is on the same team. It is all for one-friendly competitiveness. No one is out to hurt anyone.
I want to go to college and go back to Georgetown. It's a really cool place.
I think a lot of times people design restaurants with flash in mind. I think you should design restaurants with function in mind. Make sure it's functional and works with what you're trying to accomplish. Design can come later.
