I have a lot of cooking tools. In fact I have a whole drawer full of knives. Cooking tools, especially cutlery, are my toys.
You should hear what my parents wanted to call me. It was between Brown Rice, Neon Hitch and Z. Ziggurat Zanzibar Zandorf. I'm not joking. Imagine fitting that on my passport!
There are so many reality shows on now where they want you to be crazy, the girls are just going bananas; you know how they portray brown girls. They portray us in a different type of light.
I cooked at the White House for Easter, last year, with Michelle Obama. But it more had to do with cooking from the organic garden, and her message. I took my daughter and granddaughter there, and they were really charming, it was great.
When I think of the 1980s, the only color that comes to mind is a brown, yellowish color. I guess it's coming from my life experience, and it's melancholia and sadness and a bit of joy.
One of the things that's influenced me musically was my experience at Brown University. I was surrounded by musicians that I really admired, and felt challenged to come up with music, lyrics, and recordings that stood up to the expectations of those ...
Most of my food memories are of my Nan cooking Sunday dinners - roasts of meat with lots of vegetables. I suppose I cook what's comforting and dishes that make me feel good.
Indian food has been huge in the UK forever and ever, but that's because it has a historical rooting. America, I think is really ripe for it. There's been so much interest in Indian culture.
I like to abide by the seasons and let the natural flavor in food speak for itself. I use quick cooking techniques of high heat with very little fat, such as quick saute or wok stir-frying.
It's fun to pick a cuisine and say I'm going to research Ethiopian food, and see what it's all about. You find that there are a lot of similarities in cuisines from around the world and a lot of similar flavors.
I always think if you have to cook once, it should feed you twice. If you're going to make a big chicken and vegetable soup for lunch on Monday, you stick it in the refrigerator and it's also for Wednesday's dinner.
Keep it simple in the kitchen. If you use quality ingredients, you don't need anything fancy to make food delicious: just a knife, a cutting board, and some good nonstick cookware, and you're set.
We need the humbleness and clarity to see that our food, while benefitting from technological advances, has benefitted even more from free ecological resources: Cheap energy, lots of water everywhere, and a stable climate.
I love Italian food; it's soulful like French food. Italian food is original and homey; it's market-driven, but also can be locally sourced.
I had a lot of fun creating some restaurants with a casual note to it, such as DBGB, for example, where it was about bangers and beers, being a very casual brasserie with very affordable food but very interesting homemade program.
I think D.C. has always been very, very vibrant for food. Like Boston in a way. Boston and D.C. were really the two cities that were the most active with their local chefs and their local food scene.
I think that the Japanese - and I do love Japanese cuisine and adore Japanese food culture - I think that they're going to plow through the entire world's fishing. They're going to eat everything anyways.
To me, there are two types of celebrity: there's good celebrity - people that are attracted to the food and working and trying to create something great - and then there's bad celebrity - those who are working on being a celebrity.
Alinea is not the type of restaurant where you go if you're in a hurry. Really, it's about enjoying that three-hour block of time and reflecting on the food, having great conversation with your dining companion.
Food trucks give creative entrepreneurs the ability to cook with freedom and make what they love, meaning that they can create highly specialized meals without having the high overhead costs of running a restaurant.
You can't escape the taste of the food you had as a child. In times of stress, what do you dream about? Your mother's clam chowder. It's security, comfort. It brings you home.
