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.
You can't chase everybody on the Internet who's saying stuff about you, that's for sure.
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 work out to eat.
Today, when I hire, I look for people who want to be trained and molded.
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 have a long family history of good cooks in my family.
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.
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.
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.
I can't be on the cheeseburger diet all the time.
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 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 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.
I spend 80% of my time in my restaurants. Taping my TV shows doesn't take much time, and then they get aired a lot. That's the thing people don't realize.
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.
I think everybody at some point in time has thought to themselves, 'I have a really great idea for a restaurant.'
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 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.
