Quotes By Emeril Lagasse

I'm not a TV guy. I'm a restaurant chef and a businessman.

When I cook with my son, I might chop vegetables and have fun with different shapes. Cooking is a way to teach kids about other things, like reading or math with all of the weights and measures. There are so many things that are part of cooking that are also very educational.

If kids can learn how to make a simple Bolognese sauce, they will never go hungry. It's pretty easy to cook pasta, but a good sauce is way more useful.

We're probably close to reaching 2,000 shows, which is more than Julia Child and Jacques Pepin together.

The world has changed, and it's almost been 11 years. I have 975 employees. I have six restaurants. We haven't opened any new ones in almost three years.

I was on the board of Andre Agassi's foundation, and seeing the way it operated blew my mind. In 2002, I told my wife, I want to start a foundation to give back, I want it to be for kids in hard circumstances, and I want it to be culinary-driven, because that's who I am.

My food is Louisiana, New Orleans-based, well-seasoned, rustic. I think it's pretty unique because of my background being influenced by my mom, Portuguese and French Canadian. There's a lot going on there.

I think all kids need snacks. Mine are fruit machines. I give them things like apple slices, berries and melon. Do I let them eat ice cream? Absolutely. But not every day.

Kids are now eating things like edamame and sushi. I didn't know what shiitake mushrooms were when I was 10 - most kids today do.

I've always done food that can work in a set time frame. The message I'm trying to get across is, it doesn't have to take three days to do this. With planning, you can do a lot and really have quality food every day.

I think you have to be careful with spices. Kids' palates can be very delicate, and they might not like things overspiced. In my cookbooks for kids, I do a milder version of my signature spice blend, Emeril's Essence, called Baby Bam, which has no cayenne pepper.

My family... always had the value of the family table and these cultural influences of growing up.

If you don't follow your dream, who will?

My favorite Aspen memory is saving an upside-down cake that had exploded from the high altitude.

I had these recipes that say do this, do that. Who MAKES these rules?

Wrap fish fillets, sliced veggies, and other quick-cooking items inside foil packets with bundles of fresh herbs and throw them directly on the grill; the steam will release the herb's perfume and flavor anything contained inside the pouch.

I ended up turning down a full scholarship of music at the conservatory to pay to go to cooking school.

The cool thing is that now that people have made this evolution where cooking is cool, people are doing it on weekends, they're doing their own challenges. It's back to cooking. And it's real cooking.

If somebody has a chance to put my food in their mouth, that tells the story.

I think you've got to keep it simple, keep it fresh. Stay away from all that processed stuff, read the labels.

My Food Network shows, 'Emeril Live' and 'Essence of Emeril,' are not in production right now, but I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily leaving Food Network. I have a lot of television still in me. I enjoy teaching people, so it's just a matter of time before I do something new.

In the restaurant it's much more serious.

A lot of parents ask me how to get kids to eat more vegetables. The first thing I say is that it starts from the top.

We began building this incredible new foundation in this restaurant, and that's what began giving me the left-hand side of tradition and the right-hand side, my new palate.

My office in New York is overflowing with all kinds of cookbooks, and in New Orleans we have a huge culinary library. So yeah, I guess I'm a little bit obsessed.

I started cooking when I was about 10. I have memories like when I was 6 or 7 with my mom, and when I was 12 I started getting real serious about cooking.

I respected it. I submerged myself into it. So on a lot of days off I would go and fish with the fishermen and the families that ran the boats. I would go work the fields with farmers. I would go and talk with farmers about growing particular products for me.

When I want to kick it up, I like to add hardwood chips or chunks to the grill; it adds bold smoky flavors. The most common woods are hickory and mesquite, but you can find alder, apple, cherry and, my personal favorite, pecan.

Scatter soaked hardwood chunks over your coals for a quick and easy way to add a smoky nuance to your grilled foods.

When I first decided to open a restaurant, I was turned down by several banks. It was the late 80's and many restaurants were failing. I refused to give up because I knew I had a good concept.