The funny thing about Thanksgiving ,or any big meal, is that you spend 12 hours shopping for it then go home and cook,chop,braise and blanch. Then it's gone in 20 minutes and everybody lies around sortof in a sugar coma and then it takes 4 hours to clean it up.

I cook everything. I love Mediterranean cooking, I love Asian cooking. I do lots of Japanese noodles.

Not to sound too much like Christopher Guest in 'Waiting for Guffman,' but on Thanksgiving you're putting on a show!

I think what I do differently from a lot of TV chefs is that I break down barriers and make fine food more accessible to the regular person, who might be intimidated. I try hard, particularly with wine, to make it not intimidating. It's sort of a teaching job.

I like to have friends in the kitchen and make a big mess and use every pot in the kitchen.

I'm a home cook and love to read about food, but I'm not trained as a chef. I'm just really into cooking and passionate about it.

One of the smartest things you can do on 'Chopped' is to take one of those ingredients and make a pickle out of it, because almost every dish benefits from that. I'm feeling like those intuitions are becoming more natural.