BOBBY FLAY

When people pile seven things onto one burger, it drives me nuts!

There are so many great things about this business. Almost everybody is on the same team. It is all for one-friendly competitiveness. No one is out to hurt anyone.

You can't chase everybody on the Internet who's saying stuff about you, that's for sure.

Grilling outside with my parents at the Jersey shore. We would grill lobster and corn in the summer.

I don't have a long family history of good cooks in my family.

Most of the time, I grill over high heat. I like things to move fast. I like the sound and smell of a very hot fire. I gravitate towards dishes that you can get on and off the grill as quickly as possible. After a while, you'll know without thinking about it how hot the fire is.

One thing you don't want to do as a host is be running around all evening. Do as much as you can ahead of time, so all you have to do is grill the main ingredients.

I guess I fell into cooking.

For me, it's all about moderation. I don't kick things out of my diet, like carbs. But I'm not going to eat fast food.

Everybody says, 'I have problems overcooking steak on the grill,' but just take it off earlier! Grilling is really common sense. It's very simple. You should think of a grill as a burner - it just happens to have grates. You shouldn't be intimidated by it.

One of the things that happens in my house on the holidays is after dessert, we sit down to a very ambitious men-versus-women game of Trivial Pursuit. It's brutal. And there's a trophy.

If my daughter wants to get into this business, I would support that decision. She's going to have a hard time not being in it. She loves food and she's around it all the time.

My feeling is that if you can cook, I can teach you how to do television.

Don't underestimate the importance of having enough room to work. Grilling is much more relaxing when you are not trying to juggle a whole collection of plates and bowls as you do it. If your grill doesn't have enough workspace - and they almost never do - set up a table right next to your grill.

I prefer lump charcoal over briquettes but I do use both for different reasons and different recipes and sometimes I combine them both when I really want the woodsy aroma from the lump charcoal and long, even heat from the briquettes.

I think cookies are sort of the unsung sweet, you know? They're incredibly popular. But everybody thinks of cakes and pies and fancier desserts before they think cookies. A plate of cookies is a great way to end dinner and really nice to share at the holidays.

I still love making hamburgers on the grill. I guess whenever I eat them childhood memories come up for me.

When I'm on television, I think that I appeal to the everyday guy, 'cause that's who I am. The guys who go to the football games on the weekends are my viewers, for sure.

Go vegetable heavy. Reverse the psychology of your plate by making meat the side dish and vegetables the main course.

My contribution I hope is to get people to eat full-flavored food. If I could come away with that alone, that would be a fantastic accomplishment. I'm also very proud of being a very American chef.

Nothing goes perfectly, especially when you're opening a restaurant.

It is very important that when you put something on the grill, you leave it in place to cook. If you move it around too quickly, chances are it is going to stick.

I wasn't passionate about food until I'd been cooking for a while. I started long before food became part of the mainstream media. I just wanted to cook, period.

An instant-read thermometer is your best bet for making sure that meat and fish are cooked to the proper temperature.

I think everybody at some point in time has thought to themselves, 'I have a really great idea for a restaurant.'