We're all so busy we don't make time to enjoy our lives, good company and good food.
Cooking steak is a joy because it is a terrific piece of meat that has great flavour whether it is grilled or pan-fried.
People think the restaurant industry is hard and takes no prisoners, but so does baking, so does retail and so does bus driving. You can't blame your job.
My earliest memory of cooking is my grandmother showing me how to make chicken gravy on the big combustion stove in her kitchen. I still use Nana's gravy recipe.
Sydney has the world's best swimming pool. Walk through the Botanical Gardens and you come to the Andrew 'Boy' Charlton Pool on Mrs Macquaries Road, with incredible views of Finger Wharf and the Harbour.
Yes, I am a judge on 'MasterChef,' where I taste thousands of dishes, and yes I am a trained chef which has had me commanding some of the biggest brigands a kitchen has ever seen. Yes, I have travelled the world and cooked on television and at food shows up and down the country, but in my heart I am a home cook.
I'm a culture person when I'm working, so my downtime is beach time: sand, surf and a barbecue.
My father did lots of things. He had an orange-juice factory. He did real estate. He did commercial selling. He was always up and about doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things and being adventurous. I always admired his self-discipline. He was very good at getting everything done. He was very tidy.
That's one of the things that concerns me - vegan steak or whatever. It is a hard terminology thing, because what are you eating? With beef you know it's a piece of beef.
On Christmas morning breakfast is always thick slices of ham, thick white toast, butter and pepper - oh and a glass of fizz!
In our family a whole ham on the bone would be bought three days before Christmas, and then stored in a pillow case and left in the fridge so anyone can take the huge thing out and slice it.
Raft Point is among the greatest examples of ancient indigenous art we know of.
What I'm trying to do as an Australian is to say to people, 'You've got to go back out to Australia,' because there are rural communities that really rely upon tourism to continue to go.
I ate some really amazing food in Thailand. I had river turtle, and dried rat, which was quite chewy and interesting and a bit like biltong.
There are three types of palate. There's the palate that can't taste anything, there's the normal palate, and there's the Super Palate. I don't think I've got a Super Palate, but it's pretty good.
My kind of cooking is not a single style - French, Asian, Australasian or British - it's not modern, old-fashioned or classic; it's a mix of all these things. And at its core is a boy who loved to cook with his Nanna.
I like all my jackets to be on wooden coat hangers, all facing the same direction.
My affinity for beef extends into my home life, so you'll notice canvas prints of cows, a cowhide rug and prints of Smithfield meat market.
The most used thing I have is my wok. I prefer it to a pan or pot. It is my wonder. They're really easy to clean, I am a lazy cook like that, so it appeals.
Men and women are not the same in the kitchen. Women tend to be uninhibited and instinctive. Men are inconsistent, egotistical show-offs.
