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.
I think everybody at some point in time has thought to themselves, ‘I have a really great idea for a restaurant.’
I don’t have a long family history of good cooks in my family.
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.
Nothing goes perfectly, especially when you’re opening a restaurant.
Obviously, the easiest recipes are the most successful when it comes to the home cook, because they’re not intimidated by them. If I’m doing ‘Boy Meets Grill,’ and I do something very simple like grilled hamburgers or steaks or chicken, those are the most sought-after recipes.
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.
The first time I was cooking for my wife, Stephanie, way before she was my wife, I actually put three chickens on the rotisserie and I closed the grill, which is really a bad idea. But I just wasn’t thinking very straight that day. And I looked outside and I saw, like, smoke and flames.
Today, when I hire, I look for people who want to be trained and molded.
Grilling outside with my parents at the Jersey shore. We would grill lobster and corn in the summer.
In those days, the main requirement to be on the Food Network was being able to get there by subway.
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.
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.
It’s important to have balance in your life between work and play.
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.’
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.
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.
Charcoal or gas. Both give excellent results, so choose the one that best suits your style of cooking.
I dropped out of high school. I really had no interest in doing any school work whatsoever.
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.