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 cook everything. I love Mediterranean cooking, I love Asian cooking. I do lots of Japanese noodles.

Two words to improve any dish. Ba, Con

It's very important to me that people who are actual chefs and other professionals in the culinary world, understand that I'm not, and have never held myself out as being, like a CIA trained chef.

You know the great irony is that people think you have to have money to enjoy fine food, which is a shame.

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

People want honest, flavourful food, not some show-off meal that takes days to prepare.

My place in Chicago is a 105 year old house, but I really like contemporary spaces too, so it's refreshing and fun to be in a space where you can do contemporary things.

If I have committed any culinary atrocities, please forgive me.

In actuality, there was casting for the show and it was pretty difficult.

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.

Stories are like islands, go out exploring and you're bound to get lost fantastically.

And when things get tough, this is what you should do.Make good art.

How we respond to grief can shape our present

CNN says it did not share its coverage materials with any candidate, party or campaign and says it was completely uncomfortable with [Donna] Brazile's involvement with the [Hillary] Clinton camp.

While carrying responsibilities, never forget to smile.

It creeps up on you and becomes an obsession. It comes out of watching a million movies.

The liberal arts are the arts of communication and thinking. 'They are the arts indispensable to further learning, for they are the arts of reading, writing, speaking, listening, figuring.

I just saw Twilight on TV, for the first time, a few days ago, and, when my song came on, I was just thinking that is so bazaar that I actually had a song in the movie.

I'm still confounded by how few female directors there are. I don't get it.

When fans start screaming when they see me it makes my heart smile.