Your worst parts of your life, the things that you're ashamed of will become your strongest assets in a very quick amount of time. And the implication in that is your story is all that you have so passing it on to someone else who is struggling behind you coming up the ladder helps them. And so in the spirit of service in recovery we often talk about the power of our own stories to connect with other people and show them that they too can get well. I have found that not only is that true in the recovery world, but it is true in the social world in the social milieu in which I exist.

Being honest about where you come from and what your story is is the only way to connect to other people, to really connect with them.

I think our former first lady said it last month in one of her first speeches since leaving the White House, I think I'm getting the quote nearly right- "Who could possibly be against feeding children wholesome, good food?" Well, it turns out there are people who are against feeding children wholesome good food and there are people who are against solving our homelessness problem, they're against solving our food security issues and by and along political lines.

The food to me is just a hook, it's a button, it happens to be the social construct and the cultural totem that I'm most familiar with. So of course I built the show around food because it's where I'm familiar.

I was just thrown out of the barista parlor. Came to close to the Slayer. Amazing place!

The single greatest pleasure that I have in doing ('Bizarre Foods') is when I meet families with 6, 7, 8-year-olds, or teenagers, who say, 'It's something the whole family can watch, and it lets us show our younger children that one man's 'weird' is another man's 'wonderful,' and we all kind of live in the same place.' It's just the best part of my day.

I don't understand why we have laws that prevent someone from walking a school campus and selling alcohol or drugs but somehow can't feed our children who attend those schools a healthy balanced diet, which I think is a lot worse. It's offensive and I think anyone who isn't offended by it is an idiot.