If you think about a Thanksgiving dinner, it's really like making a large chicken.

I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand, a warm smile on my face, and great music in the background, because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start.

My favorite fall or winter lunch is big steaming bowls of soup. I usually invite people for around 12:30 and have two hearty soups like shrimp corn chowder and lentil sausage soup, which can be made a day or two ahead.

Anyone who tries to make brownies without butter should be arrested.

You don't have to do everything from scratch. Nobody wants to make puff pastry!

If it's a cocktail party, I generally make five or six different things, and I try to choose recipes that feel like a meal: a chicken thing, a fish or shrimp thing, maybe two vegetable things, and I think it's fun to end the cocktail party with a sweet thing.

I love Alton Brown's show 'Good Eats,' about the chemistry of food. It's really thoughtful.