I remember the Food Network when it was first starting out: Emeril Lagasse and all those people who helped make it when it was on a shoestring budget. It actually encouraged me to start cooking.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
'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.
As a chef, I had started working with groups like Share Our Strength and various local food banks in New York, raising money for hunger-related issues. And not only me, but the entire restaurant industry has been very focused on this issue.
It started when I moved into a vegetarian co-op back in the '70s, and that's really when I had my food consciousness awakened. I learned how to cook, and eventually I became the food buyer for the entire co-op. Not long after that, I went to work for a small natural food store in Austin, and I became very excited and passionate about it.
I started a deli when I was 19 years old. Kevin O's. The sandwiches at Kevin O's were a little like Subway before Subway - fresh baked bread. My best seller was turkey with cream cheese and artichoke hearts. I just made it up.
I was at a party, and some squiggly looking dude with a bow tie came up and said, 'How'd you like to be on TV?' Turns out he was the programming guy at the Food Network. They had me come into the office, and I did a 'Ready, Set, Cook' with Emeril Lagasse, I believe.
I joined the board of Chipotle because no company has ever been able to scale fresh, properly sourced food in the history of America.
Nobody believed the 'Food Network' could last. Even I was short sighted and thought to myself, 24 hours of food on TV? They'll run out of things to talk about in four days! But that wasn't true. 'Food Network' continues to get better and evolve.
Cable made the Food Network possible. It was invented in 1993 by Reese Schoenfeld, a co-founder of CNN, who was convinced that its natural audience was women - millions of them.
'Outlaw Cook' was a revelation. Folks like Jeff Smith and Marcella Hazan got me interested in cooking, but John Thorne pushed me into the path that I follow to this day. This is the only cookbook I've ever read that understands how men really eat: over the sink, in the dark, greasy to the elbows.
I came along at a time when the industry was eating its young.
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