It’s all true and I can’t do much about it at this point.
Not everybody is interested in what I’m interested in. You have to have a small ego to write effective, everyday recipes. You can have a big ego and be a great chef, but that’s not my job. It’s my job to teach people and appeal to all different lifestyles, age groups and backgrounds.
I'm very specific about what I want to put my name on and how I want it to look. I draw on a cocktail napkin or scrap paper and say things like, "How about an oval pot?"
I went into my boss and said, ‘I think I’ve made a big boo-boo here. I sold all of these classes, and I can’t get a chef to do it.
But we started the class and I made a packet of 30 30-minute Mediterranean meals because the bestsellers every day were the pasta and chicken dishes.
My life has been a total accident – a very happy wonderful accident that I didn’t and couldn’t have planned I was surrounded by all different styles of cooking and worked in the food service industry in just about every capacity you can imagine.
So I went around and asked all of my customers, ‘Why do you not cook? Why are you not buying the groceries?’ And everybody said the same thing: ‘I have no time, and it’s easier to cook the prepared meals.’
I was raised in a household that taught us that everybody has the right to have a lot of fun.
When I first heard from the Food Network, I told them that I was beer in a bottle and they are champagne. I’m too loud one day and giggle too much the next, or flub the intro, but what I do is not about technique. I need a story to go with the burger. People want to relax a little.
I did 30 Minute Meals for five years on local television, and I earned nothing the first two years. Then I earned $50 a segment. I spent more than that on gas and groceries, but I really enjoyed making the show and I loved going to a viewer’s house each week. I knew I enjoyed it, so I stuck with it even though it cost me.
My rule is that whenever I have off 36 hours or more, I go to my home upstate. I like being home. I like a cozy life. The sky is darker, the stars are brighter, and things make more sense to me when I’m in the middle of the woods.
I don’t want anything to separate me from the viewers. I open the cans, I chop the onions myself, and I wear street clothes. I don’t want people to look at what I do and think that they can’t do that too. It’s extremely important.
That’s why I don’t wear a chef’s coat. I don’t even wear an apron. At home, I wipe my hands on my coat, I burn my fingers, and it doesn’t look perfect. But it is my food. It’s the real deal….I’m happy that way.
Whatever it is that you’re successful at, that has to be the No. 1 goal. In my case, it’s accessibility. So all of my products have to be usable, accessible, affordable.
We chose to be in grocery stores, not fancy food stores, because that’s where most of my audience shops. Our pots and pans have to be heavy-bottomed and sturdy but also affordable.
Decide what it is that you are and then stay true to that thing. My brand is based very much on how I live my day-to-day life.
My first vivid memory is watching mom in a restaurant kitchen. She was flipping something with a spatula. I tried to copy her and ended up grilling my right thumb. I was three or four.
Everyone on both sides of my family cooks.
I learned everything about cooking basically at home and in restaurants. A lot of people ask me where I learned how to cook. My mother never showed me how to peel a potato. There was never, ‘Try this, you’ll like it.’ There was just dinner: ‘Here’s what you’re eating.’ You didn’t have to ask how to make it if you were in the kitchen, and everybody lived in the kitchen.
My cooking comes from my grandfather and my mom. They were both amazing cooks. My mother so blows me away. I don’t know if she could do everything in 30 minutes or not, but she is definitely great, and she knows every dish. There is nothing she can’t make.
My dad is a great Southern cook, but it takes him, like, six hours to grocery shop. He is fussy to the point that it’s ridiculous.
I didn’t think I could teach a class; I’m not a real chef. But we started the class and I made a packet of 30 30-minute Mediterranean meals because the bestsellers every day were the pasta and chicken dishes...and that’s how it started.
When you’re trying to balance everything, you just have to be flexible. So you can’t have dinner until around 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. If that’s what it is, that’s what it is. You can’t have it all without sacrificing quite a bit. You can’t be too rigid with things like what time you’ll have dinner or when you’ll take vacation.
You have to be open-minded when those early opportunities present themselves. Take advantage of them whether they’re going to make you a lot of money or not.
I don’t have a typical day anymore. Taping the [daily talk] show is different from ’30-Minute Meals.’ And if I’m writing for my magazine, then I spend all day at the computer with my dog at my feet. I work a long day because it feels good to me, and I do that no matter what my job is.
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