The Travel Channel had success with their 'Food Paradise' series, '10 Best Places to Pig Out' and those types of specials, so they knew there was a market for comfort food and wanted to develop a show around it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A lot of food shows need only to tempt. Some food shows only need to inspire, to empower. And there are a lot of shows that do that.
Travelling to make television programmes means I have some unusual food memories. In Pasto, Colombia, I was taken to a restaurant where I chose my meat for the evening from a cage of white rats. It tasted perfectly good - like rabbit.
I love those shows where they go to all the greasy diners in America.
That's always my downfall on tour: the food. I just want to eat everything.
Olympia was a town crawling with music. I was new to the whole punk scene. The culture shock continued; Olympia had bagels! We didn't have bagels in Arkansas. You could order vegetarian food all over town! It was so crazy to me - a place with so many vegetarians, the restaurants made special dishes for them?
I'm such an avid magazine reader - music, art, beauty magazines - and I found that food and restaurants were pouring into everything I cared about. Whether it was the pop-up concept, or some mysterious mini-mall restaurant, I got swept up in the sexy romance of the food movement.
Shows like 'Top Chef,' 'Hell's Kitchen' have helped bring attention to the culinary world on a whole, but you have to be cautious it doesn't get out of hand.
Through my work and travels I have been lucky enough to have been exposed to various eclectic cuisine running the gamut from small local cafes to iconic five-star restaurants.
London has become one of the great world destinations for someone who likes food.
'The Food Network' was just starting in New York, and I was getting lots of attention from Mesa Grill. They had no money, so if you couldn't get there by subway, you couldn't be on. It wasn't like TV was something I really wanted to do - but I knew it would be great publicity for my restaurants.