I think all kids need snacks. Mine are fruit machines. I give them things like apple slices, berries and melon. Do I let them eat ice cream? Absolutely. But not every day.

I wouldn't ask any of my employees to do anything I wouldn't do. And I work as hard, if not harder than the rest of the staff, to set an example. I also believe in giving my employees a lot of room to be creative and to express themselves.

I moved to Louisiana to become the executive Chef at Commander's Place. And I must say I had some encouragement from friends such as Ella Brennan, the queen of the New Orleans's culinary set, and others. This was very flattering to a young man with a dream. I was only 26 years old.

You gotta have good olive oil. You should have a cooking olive oil and you should have a finishing olive oil, like an extra-virgin olive oil.

I think you have to be careful with spices. Kids' palates can be very delicate, and they might not like things overspiced. In my cookbooks for kids, I do a milder version of my signature spice blend, Emeril's Essence, called Baby Bam, which has no cayenne pepper.

The cool thing is that now that people have made this evolution where cooking is cool, people are doing it on weekends, they're doing their own challenges. It's back to cooking. And it's real cooking.

You can easily put together your own favorite spice blend, whether that's a salt and pepper mixture or you're adding herbs to it or Creole spice. Just watch out for the sodium content. That why I encourage you to make your own.