Take risks and you’ll get the payoffs. Learn from your mistakes until you succeed.
When people pile seven things onto one burger, it drives me nuts!
Cooking is a subject you can never know enough about. There is always something new to discover.
Basically, there are two things we know: Everybody has less time, and the general public is demanding better food – better in terms of quality and better in terms of flavor.
I’d love to visit Thailand just for the street food and the energy of a city like Bangkok.
There are so many great things about this business. Almost everybody is on the same team. It is all for one-friendly competitiveness. No one is out to hurt anyone.
I can’t be on the cheeseburger diet all the time.
A grill is just a source of heat. Just like a stove, it is very user-friendly.
I still love making hamburgers on the grill. I guess whenever I eat them childhood memories come up for me.
I love the culture of grilling. It creates an atmosphere that is festive but casual.
Grilling takes the formality out of entertaining. Everyone wants to get involved.
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 guess I fell into cooking.
Everybody says, ‘I have problems overcooking steak on the grill,’ but just take it off earlier! Grilling is really common sense. It’s very simple. You should think of a grill as a burner – it just happens to have grates. You shouldn’t be intimidated by it.
I love using gas grills because they are easier to heat and it’s much easier to control the flames with a gas grill than with a charcoal fire. Grilling is not just about lighting a fire.
I think cookies are sort of the unsung sweet, you know? They’re incredibly popular. But everybody thinks of cakes and pies and fancier desserts before they think cookies. A plate of cookies is a great way to end dinner and really nice to share at the holidays.
Do you want to make a tamale with peanut butter and jelly? Go Ahead! Somebody will eat it.
My contribution I hope is to get people to eat full-flavored food. If I could come away with that alone, that would be a fantastic accomplishment. I’m also very proud of being a very American chef.
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.
You can’t chase everybody on the Internet who’s saying stuff about you, that’s for sure.