I had kicked around the idea for Good Eats when I was directing commercials.

I think in the end there are only 20 or 30 tenets of basic cooking. It's going at perhaps the same issue from different angles, from different points of view, from different presentation styles, that really makes things sink in and become embedded.

The turkey - my number one thing that people don't get is take that sucker out of the refrigerator about three hours before you plan on cooking it.

Although I don't take myself very seriously, I do take my work extraordinarily seriously.

We are fat and sick and dying because we have handed a basic, fundamental and intimate function of life over to corporations. We choose to value our nourishment so little that we entrust it to strangers. This is insanity. Feed yourselves. Feed your loved ones. And for God's sake feed your children.

I know people that could serve me canned tuna and saltine crackers and have me feel more at home at their table than some people who can cook circles around me. The more you try to impress people, generally the less you do.

The jewel of the lard is right around the kidneys. But this is a fat that has a very specific crystalline formation and a high melting point.