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.

My whole problem is that all of my favorite things at Thanksgiving are the starches, and everyone is trying to go low-carb this year, even a green vegetable has carbs in it.

For me, the kitchen is the most special room in the house. It's a place for adventure - not drudgery, but discovery, sharing and showing off with friends, trying new ideas.

I think that curiosity happened on these reviews where I was just a guest of the reviewer, because it introduced me to new cuisines and to the idea of cooking as a mechanism for studying other cultures and understanding other parts of the world.

The great mystery to me is how restaurant critics think they can get away with doing their job without anybody noticing who they are.

Cooking allows you to have travels, adventures and journeys without going anywhere. The running joke between my partner and me is that I'm not really concerned about how long it takes, or how much I destroy the kitchen, because I just have such a good time doing it.

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.