I love cooking. I love having friends around.
Sometimes I look up a recipe for chicken and tomatoes and end up cooking pork. The inspiration gets lost in translation.
I like Bobby Flay's attitude and his approach towards food. I think he's just passionate and very honest. I find him very honest about food and cooking and ingredients and I admire that because I think that it's easy to get away from that for various reasons.
I baked the coffee cake recipe from 'The Joy of Cooking' over and over again when I was a kid.
Repeatedly opening the oven - or worse, taking out the turkey to baste it - slows down the momentum of cooking.
I didn't cook that much as a kid. My mother was cooking, and I was her helper. We made dishes together.
When we talk about chefs, we often talk about their love of food or their passion for it, but cooking is also about making a living; it's a job.
I love 'The Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook' by Dione Lucas. A huge source of information and inspiration. The book is organized by menu, and the recipes are unusual and exciting.
Don't be so hard on yourself. Make something simple a few times until you 'master' it and move on to the next thing. Take a cooking class! Buy a cookbook that specializes in foods or a cuisine you enjoy.
I grew up in a house where I was a spectator to the sport of cooking. In that way, I just learned so much about what it really takes to make food.
