I have an affinity for the old Seattle coffee shops, places like the Green Onion and the Copper Kettle, the classic kind of coffee bar - little places that served breakfast, lunch and dinner and have pretty much disappeared.
Most of the catfish you find at the fish counter has been farmed. Though I usually prefer to buy and eat wild fish, farmed catfish taste cleaner, without the muddy taste of their wild relatives.
Tender and sweet, Manila clams partner well with a wide variety of foods - white wine, sake, beer, butter, leeks, fresh herbs, roasted peppers, olives, and wild mushrooms, to name a few.
Horseradish is one of those perk-me-ups. You can use it in a cocktail sauce, you can bread fish with it - it loses its punch when cooked. It's a 'What is that?' flavor. It adds depth of flavor to things.
Summer in Seattle allows me to indulge in some of the region's top culinary delights - I'm talking about wild king salmon and fresh, ripe Washington stone fruits and berries like cherries, peaches, plums, and blueberries.
Spooning a seasonal fruit relish onto a plate of grilled king salmon is very much my style - flavorful, straightforward, and unfussy. I also like the way fresh, ripe fruit balances the richness of the salmon.
I can't stand it when restaurants don't have a sense of place in a city. When I'm in London, I want to know I'm in London. When you're sitting in my joint, you know you're sitting in Seattle.
I'm a compassionate person, so if a product is 15 percent more than what I typically pay, and I see the purpose, I'll foster that kind of sustainability for the farmers/fishers.
I use a lot of spices, fresh veggies and fruit, extra virgin olive oil, nuts, avocado, soybeans and organic ingredients as often as possible. We need fat in our diets and using the healthier fats is key.
What we learned several years ago was that one of our weaknesses would be if we didn't develop enough people with the know-how to run our company, it would come to the point where we would just stop.
I always go back to Harry Truman: Should we drop an atomic bomb to save 100,000 lives? That's a hell of a decision to make. Did he make that decision by himself? No, he had advisers.
Close your eyes and place your finger on a map. Wherever it lands, that's the theme of the evening. So many times we settle for routine dishes. This forces you to try new cuisines.
My kids and I make pasta three days a week now. It's not even so much about the eating of it; they just like the process. Benno is the stuffer, and Leo is the catcher. They've got their jobs down.
The difference between 'Molto Italiano' and 'The Babbo Cookbook' is that the ingredient lists in 'Molto' are about half or even a third the size. In 'Babbo,' they are very long, they are very real. That's exactly how we make them in the restaurant.
With chefs, the problem is we have to be very confident because people are looking at us for that. So pretty soon, you think you're a plumber, you think you're an electrician, you think you're an accountant.
The part that I know I enjoy most is the restaurants. You can't do everything, you know? For me, the priority has been being deeply involved in my restaurants and figuring out different ways to make them run better.
Don't let what you don't know scare you, because it can become your greatest asset. And if you do things without knowing how they have always been done, you're guaranteed to do them differently.
I cut the feet out of control top pantyhose one night, threw them on under my white pants and realized that the toning and shaping was perfect and that the hosiery material is thin enough that I could make shape wear out of it.
Every lesson I learned as a kid was at the dinner table. Being Greek, Sicilian and Ruthenian - we are an emotional bunch. It is where we laughed, cried and yelled - but most importantly, where we bonded and connected.
I know a lot of people love applications on their phone, but I'm like, 'Yeah, I understand the nice experience, but there's something about it that doesn't flow well.' Opening an app, closing it, moving to something else. There's something about the ...
We have a huge tech following that do nothing but Digg tech stories, and then there's another pool of users that remove the tech section from their view of Digg, because you can go on and customize your own experience and remove sections you don't li...
