What's your favorite meal to cook and eat?
That's a hard one. It depends on the time of year. In the summertime, I'm all about fresh summer produce, like tomatoes and corn with grilled fish. But in the winter, braise me a big lamb shank. I love to dig right into that. Or a dish of bucatini all'Amatriciana. Amatriciana sauce is one of my favorite tomato sauces. It has guanciale, which is like bacon, and you render it with lots of onions. It's a tomato sauce that's a little spicy. With big chewy fat pasta. It's really good.
There's been a lot of attention to sustainable food in the media. What are your thoughts about that kind of movement, sort of related to Worst Cooks, getting people to cook at home and then maybe taking the next step of getting them to cook with better kinds of food.
I'm always a proponent of cooking with better quality food. It's why fast food infuriates me. The quality of the food that's being offered is so poor. It's why we have such a problem with obesity and diabetes because the food is such low quality. It's disgusting. What I can recommend to people is eat seasonally. Go to the farmer's market. Buy what's in season at the farmer's market, first of all. It tastes the best and it looks the best. You really don't have to do that much to it. It's kind of hard to do in upstate New York in the winter time. Go spend time in your produce aisle rather than the junk food aisle. Bend down and look at the pretty, pretty vegetables. It just gets you excited!
Article comments
1 - Angela
While I understand that this show is "entertainment" it still seems a bit unfair. They are down to semi-finals and lost in the grocery store, because these people don't shop for food. I would think to really help them, they should have been taken to a grocery store and market to learn about ingredients. I feel sorry for people at home who can't cook. I don't know how this could help them.
2 - Laura
Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at a bit with that first question, but you know, sometimes, people learn quite a bit when they're in crisis mode.
3 - Elaine
My husband, who doesn't care too much for cooking shows, really enjoyed this show. He even made comments on what he would do to multi task. Very interesting. We liked it and would want to see another episode. However, it should have more cooks and be a longer show. Kinda like the project runway show.
4 - Laura
Elaine, my husband liked it too. And he always rolls his eyes over my watching Top Chef. But he settled in and said, "This is gonna be good." I hope the show is longer, too, and maybe a slightly different format.
5 - Albert
What is your finishing oil. I see you use it often. What's in it?