Brushes are crucial for applying glazes, sauces, and oils. The pastry brushes that you find in homestores can be pricey so pay a visit to your local hardware store and pick up a few paint brushes which are less expensive and work equally as well.
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.
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.
When people pile seven things onto one burger, it drives me nuts!
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.
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.
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.
When I go to a restaurant, I eat three-quarters of the food in front of me. That cuts my calorie intake by 25 percent.
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.
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.
Charcoal or gas. Both give excellent results, so choose the one that best suits your style of cooking.
I prefer lump charcoal over briquettes but I do use both for different reasons and different recipes and sometimes I combine them both when I really want the woodsy aroma from the lump charcoal and long, even heat from the briquettes.
I can't be on the cheeseburger diet all the time.
I still love making hamburgers on the grill. I guess whenever I eat them childhood memories come up for me.
A molcajete is a stone mortar and pestle from Mexico. They're great for grinding spices and making salsa and guacamole because they give everything a nice coarse and rustic feel. I've never collected anything, but I think I might start collecting these because each one is decorated differently.
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.
An instant-read thermometer is your best bet for making sure that meat and fish are cooked to the proper temperature.
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.
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.
