Cooking is a caring and nurturing act. It's kind of the ultimate gift for someone, to cook for them. It creates all this beautiful stuff, conversation, appreciation, romance. All the most important things in life you do around a dinner table.

Ive changed for the better. Im much more selfless and humble and youre reminded about what lifes really about. You love your kid so much that you just want to be a brilliant role model for them. It cleans up your act a bit.

It is great to add some glamour to the food industry, like television shows have done for the food world and inspiring people to work in the industry. The flip side of that is unfortunately people think that after they get their qualifications, they get their invitation to compete on 'Top Chef.

After years of working in professional kitchens, and then spending so much time in a lot of different home kitchens, I realized that there's a huge gap in the market where you have people who develop cookware but who don't actually cook.

I thought I'd love to be a gardener because I grew up with a vegetable garden and I love being close to the Earth and growing things. At my home in L.A., I have a great garden and I grow all kinds of things. I even have a worm farm! The worms help create organic compost out of kitchen scraps.

I love coming home to Melbourne. The first thing I do is have a coffee. It's just so much better here than anywhere else. It's better than in Italy and I travel a lot. I crave it.

I grow my own vegetables and herbs. I like being able to tell people that the lunch I'm serving started out as a seed in my yard.