The best way to learn is live, in person, cooking, feeling, smelling and tasting, but TV is the second-best thing to that; it's a halfway facsimile.

However, I was a restaurant critic at Chicago magazine before I worked at Esquire, and I've been a really enthusiastic home cook for a long time. It's just something I'm passionate about.

I am much more interested in the process than results.

Cooking for people is an enormously significant expression of generosity and soulfulness.

I had a really good time with Martha Stewart, who also is somebody I really admire a lot. I've learned a lot from her and I think all of America has, about attention to detail and using fresh ingredients and making things beautiful and special.

I had a little epiphany when I was a writer at 'Chicago' magazine. I sat down to dinner at the Ritz-Carlton. Somebody poured a white dessert wine with chocolate cake. It was a wine I would never have expected to make sense. The idea of any wine tasting fabulous with chocolate cake was fascinating to me.

Oh, did I tell you I have a cookbook? I have a cookbook deal.