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I make a wicked clam chowdah, and linguine with clam sauce. Oysters I like to eat raw, and mussels in either a white wine sauce or in beer with paprika.

In my 'Big Dinners' cookbook, I recreated my mother's recipe for crab dip. The creamy dressing for this dip, made with mayonnaise, tomato paste, a touch of honey, sliced chives, lemon juice and zest, horseradish and Tabasco, is reminiscent of Thousand Island dressing.

I do a chimichurri sauce with garlic, parsley, olive oil, and red and black pepper. You just mince the garlic and the parsley and mix it all together. Brush a little of that on a steak and it kicks it up, like, 10 notches.

I love to eat sushi, and, you know, those flavors and wasabi and really eating spoonfuls of it... I would just mix it and put it on everything, literally.

As soon as I get home, all I want to eat is seafood.

For meals, I'm big into quinoa or rocket salad with a protein like shrimp of chicken added to it.

I'm not a big chicken or meat eater, but sometimes I'll eat it if it's locally raised. The family dinner will be stir-fry, or we'll roll our own sushi with brown rice, spinach, salmon, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and seaweed. The kids love it!

My ideal meal varies, depending on the time of year. Lobster on a deck overlooking a beach at sunset is one - but all my kids have to be there, because they are all lobster-lovers. Making a bolognese sauce over pappardelle for my husband on a winter evening, because he loves my bolognese sauce and it's his comfort food.

I use ginger like garlic. I love it for steaming fish and making barbecue sauces or roasted chicken.

Soy sauce and seaweed go really well with potato chips.