Cooking with kids is not just about ingredients, recipes, and cooking. It's about harnessing imagination, empowerment, and creativity.
Cooking is all about people. Food is maybe the only universal thing that really has the power to bring everyone together. No matter what culture, everywhere around the world, people get together to eat.
Food is not just eating energy. It's an experience.
There are two different things: there's grilling, and there's barbecue. Grilling is when people say, 'We're going to turn up the heat, make it really hot and sear a steak, sear a burger, cook a chicken.' Barbecue is going low and slow.
You have to be confident in who you are and what you're doing. Of course, you try to evolve. I would never tell you, 'Today is the best I will ever be.' I'm always trying to be a better chef, a better dad, a better person.
I'm a culinary gangsta with a very spiritual side, so when I was introduced to the 'spiritual gangster' line, I had to have it.
There's nothing that can replicate the smoky flavor of char, so when I've got the hankering for it, I tell my wife that I'm taking care of dinner. I have three different types of barbecues - a coal, gas and smoker - so I can experiment a lot.
When I was 12, we began hosting exchange students from Norway, Sweden, Japan and Spain. I soon realized there was a whole world out there. I was determined to spend my sophomore year in high school abroad. My school taught only Spanish, but I wanted to go to France, and I did.
You can find tranquility, you can find party, you can find new friends. I'm a cruise convert.
Food is a common denominator for all people.
With messy food, or foods with a lot of sauce, you do 'The Hunch.' I learned it in Philly, watching the dudes in suits eat cheesesteaks. You keep your elbows above your hands because if you don't, the grease runs down your sleeve to your elbow.
If you've really got a problem with me, and you came and told me you had a problem with me, I'd be interested to listen to you. But if you're just some loser that sits there and hammers away on some blog form or whatever, I don't have time for that. Why even worry about it?