When you're a chef, you graze. You never get a chance to sit down and eat. They don't actually sit down and eat before you cook. So when I finish work, the first thing I'll do, and especially when I'm in New York, I'll go for a run. And I'll run 10 or 15k on my - and I run to gain my appetite.
You don't have to look far to taste some of the best food the world has to offer. I'd pit my grandmother against a 3-star Michelin chef any day.
It's very important to me that people who are actual chefs and other professionals in the culinary world, understand that I'm not, and have never held myself out as being, like a CIA trained chef.
I work on most weekends, so my husband is the executive chef. He is an amazing cook. I love the way he does salmon, and his apple pie for dessert is delicious.
It's like a kitchen, acting. Put a chef in a kitchen and they will have different recipes. Whatever your recipe, what works for you won't work for another.
I feel very passionate about maintaining the same level of standard and respect for the food as an Iron Chef myself.
At the end of the day, it seems like there's a critic archetype for food movies, like with 'Ratatouille' or anything. You know, if you were doing a puppet show about chefs, one puppet would be the chef, one would be the critic.
First of all, I can't really claim to be a great chef.
In an Indian kitchen, the focus is on getting the job or dish done right in whatever way possible; however, in a French kitchen there's a clear hierarchy, and a chef has to know where their skills are and not go beyond them.
I love 'Top Chef.' I think it rewrote the book on how food shows are presented on TV.
As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner's medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it's three-Michelin's stars, there's no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.
The hardest thing for a chef is to become comfortable with what you do. Not to be too neurotic and worried with what you are doing and how wrong or right you are.
When you make a record, I always imagine people dancing to it. If the chef thinks it tastes good, then there will be someone who ultimately believes the same thing.
I spend so much time in Los Angeles and normally stay at a corporate apartment when shooting 'Top Chef: Just Desserts,' but when I have the chance to stay somewhere more luxurious, I love The Montage in Beverly Hills.
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.
Mostly I enjoy the restaurants (my husband is a chef), though I wish we had a wider diversity of ethnic food.
Support a small chef. Not these big chains... but support the people who are out there trying to do things right and working hard to do that.
When I was a kid, I have two dreams. I want to be a baseball player. Hometown, Hiroshima, has a Japanese baseball franchise team called Hiroshima Carps. You know, and then I want to be a sushi chef. I want to make own restaurant - sushi restaurant.
Because I'm a chef, I eat out frequently, so it's hard for me to control what I consume in terms of calories. But when I'm at home, I eat what my wife cooks for me. She works hard to avoid making foods that are high in calories and cholesterol, so most of the time, she makes vegetarian dishes.
Every chef should have an understanding of pastries or desserts.
Let me ask you: Who do you prefer, a clown organizing your menu - with all due respect to Mr. McDonald - or a chef? I do believe it's a very simple answer.
My chefs don't apply for 'Top Chef'. They all know that there is no way. At the end of the process I look at the resumes of the last 25 options just to make sure they've never worked for me before.
Living together places a huge burden on the other person to be lover, friend, entertainments manager, chef, domestic help, which is almost impossible and can lead to disappointment. If you don't live together, you spend more time with other people and ease the pressure off your lover.
My love for cooking began when I was young. Because my parents were in the army, they were both really busy. A lot of times I'd have to cook for the family; I'd rotate with my siblings. It started out as a chore, but as I got older, my mom started to see that I was really good at it. I became her sous chef.
I probably use my chef's knives more than any other tool in the kitchen. I'm not married to a particular brand, because they all work, they all have sharp blades.
I don't consider myself a rock star chef, I really don't. I cook for a living and I try to help out as many people as I can in my life and that's all I care about. I don't care about the fame of television, I use to a lot.
Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef - but that's only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn't ever believe that I was good enough to be come one.
I feel like a princess with a knife. I've wanted to be an Iron Chef forever.
The chef that grew up with the grandma who cooks tends to always beat the chef that went to the culinary institute. It's in the blood.
The idea of old was to conform yourself to a style of cooking, it was not to create a style of cooking. Now the chef is so much into 'I want to sign that dish and say I am the one who made that dish.'
I swear, I didn't really go in thinking, 'I'll be the Simon Cowell' of 'Top Chef.' I was just used to being a judge on British food shows where people are much more outspoken and rather rude. That's the culture over here.
Every chef has his treats. By that, I mean bits and pieces from things you're working on - crusty little cake trimmings, ends from a brisket, collars from a salmon, scraps. But they're snacks to me, and I eat them right off the cutting board - maybe too much.
Part of my job as a food writer is to describe food. So my work on 'Top Chef,' I feel, is an extension of that. When we give a criticism to the contestant, we want to make sure we tell them why it's not working and why it would work if they did it a different way.
I've never said I was a chef - I think I make great food. I will never open a restaurant to do, like, tasting courses.
Being an Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef, there's nothing traditional about my Thanksgiving spread.
A great chef is an artist that I truly respect.
