I guess I fell into cooking.

Cook ingredients that you are used to cooking by other techniques, such as fish, chicken, or hamburgers. In other words be comfortable with the ingredients you are using.

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.

I guess I fell into cooking.

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.

It is very important that when you put something on the grill, you leave it in place to cook. If you move it around too quickly, chances are it is going to stick.

If my daughter wants to get into this business, I would support that decision. She's going to have a hard time not being in it. She loves food and she's around it all the time.

Grilling outside with my parents at the Jersey shore. We would grill lobster and corn in the summer.

I love the culture of grilling. It creates an atmosphere that is festive but casual.

I still love making hamburgers on the grill. I guess whenever I eat them childhood memories come up for me.

My partner and I are looking at several locations on Park Avenue South and Midtown for a new restaurant space.

The process and the great smells it produces make everyone hungry and get everyone's mouth watering. And it gives men a chance to cook.

Grilling takes the formality out of entertaining. Everyone wants to get involved.

'The Food Network' was just starting in New York, and I was getting lots of attention from Mesa Grill. They had no money, so if you couldn't get there by subway, you couldn't be on. It wasn't like TV was something I really wanted to do - but I knew it would be great publicity for my restaurants.

A grill is just a source of heat. Just like a stove, it is very user-friendly.

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.

An instant-read thermometer is your best bet for making sure that meat and fish are cooked to the proper temperature.

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.

Charcoal or gas. Both give excellent results, so choose the one that best suits your style of cooking.

Chipotles to me are a one-of-a-kind pepper because they're smoked jalapenos, so they're fiery and they're smoky. It's good to use chipotles in salsas or soups or condiments - that works really well. To me, they always really pick up anything you put them in.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Go vegetable heavy. Reverse the psychology of your plate by making meat the side dish and vegetables the main course.

I can't be on the cheeseburger diet all the time.

I can't grill vegetables, shellfish or steaks without tongs. Don't bother with those long-handled grilling tongs normally found in the BBQ section of your home store. Get intimate with your grill and opt for the regular stainless steel tongs.

I dropped out of high school. I really had no interest in doing any school work whatsoever.

I live in New York and I'm in New York basically all the time. I spend a lot of my time in my restaurants, and I feel like that's why they're successful.

I love working with big flavors like chiles and smoke. Honey is perfect for softening the edges, mellowing them out a bit. I put it in everything - vinaigrettes, soups, stocks, salsas, so I'm always on the hunt for great honey.

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 think a lot of times people design restaurants with flash in mind. I think you should design restaurants with function in mind. Make sure it's functional and works with what you're trying to accomplish. Design can come later.

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.

I want to go to college and go back to Georgetown. It's a really cool place.

I was hired as a sous-chef at a restaurant on the Upper East Side. The chef liked to drink - some mornings we would find him sleeping. Two weeks after its opening, I became the chef. I was 20 years old, and way over my head. I had to hire the cooks and do the menus.

I wasn't passionate about food until I'd been cooking for a while. I started long before food became part of the mainstream media. I just wanted to cook, period.

I work out to eat.

It's important to have balance in your life between work and play.

Lime juice makes things taste fresher. I use it for drinks, salsas, relishes, soups, and sauces. You want some give to your limes - firmness means the inside is dry - and they'll stay softer longer if you don't refrigerate them.

Most of the time, I grill over high heat. I like things to move fast. I like the sound and smell of a very hot fire. I gravitate towards dishes that you can get on and off the grill as quickly as possible. After a while, you'll know without thinking about it how hot the fire is.

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.

My feeling is that if you can cook, I can teach you how to do television.

Nobody believed the 'Food Network' could last. Even I was short sighted and thought to myself, 24 hours of food on TV? They'll run out of things to talk about in four days! But that wasn't true. 'Food Network' continues to get better and evolve.

Nothing goes perfectly, especially when you're opening a restaurant.

Obviously, the easiest recipes are the most successful when it comes to the home cook, because they're not intimidated by them. If I'm doing 'Boy Meets Grill,' and I do something very simple like grilled hamburgers or steaks or chicken, those are the most sought-after recipes.

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.

One thing you don't want to do as a host is be running around all evening. Do as much as you can ahead of time, so all you have to do is grill the main ingredients.

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.