CURTIS STONE

I've changed for the better. I'm much more selfless and humble and you're reminded about what life's really about. You love your kid so much that you just want to be a brilliant role model for them. It cleans up your act a bit.

When I see my staff take a step back because I've lost my cool about something food-related, I say never apologise for your standards. If someone doesn't meet them, then you should explain that and that you want it changed. I want my staff to be like that, too.

You're much better off to buy fresh fish from a market as opposed to buying something that's been frozen and processed and covered in breadcrumbs.

For 'Around the World in 80 Plates' we got to travel all over, having what was like a cross between a culinary competition and races. And in each country we had a chef Ambassador. We went to London, Barcelona, Bologna, Hong Kong, Thailand, Morocco... It was amazing.

Keep it simple in the kitchen. If you use quality ingredients, you don't need anything fancy to make food delicious: just a knife, a cutting board, and some good nonstick cookware, and you're set.

You've got to set yourself up to be as healthy as you can. The thing we tend to do is when it gets to be a bit too hard, we actually opt out for the absolute worst option. For example, if you're in a rush in a morning and you feel like you don't have time to make breakfast, you skip it.

I always think if you have to cook once, it should feed you twice. If you're going to make a big chicken and vegetable soup for lunch on Monday, you stick it in the refrigerator and it's also for Wednesday's dinner.

For me, food is all about balance. If you eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, and an appropriate amount of poultry, fish, and red meat that are sourced from good places, you're doing well. It's important to make sure that the meat you're consuming is hormone-free.

In my travels, I also noticed that kids in Thailand like spicy food, and kids in India love curry. I'm hoping to introduce my son, Hudson, to lots of veggies and spices when he's young. I say that before he's started on solid foods, so it could be easier in theory than practice!

I love grilling. Grilling is an incredible way to keep healthy. And you can marinate both with a dry rub and also wet marinades. You can marinate juniper berry or a little bit of olive oil and some citrus and fresh herbs - all of that sort of stuff.

I love coming home to Melbourne. The first thing I do is have a coffee. It's just so much better here than anywhere else. It's better than in Italy and I travel a lot. I crave it.

I grow my own vegetables and herbs. I like being able to tell people that the lunch I'm serving started out as a seed in my yard.

Each season I find myself constantly inspired by 'The Biggest Loser' contestants. Their tenacity and willingness to learn new, healthy habits is tremendous and the results speak for themselves. I am honored to be part of such an inspiring program that helps inspire positive change in so many lives.

Now that I'm a dad, I'm practicing what I call 'one- handed cooking,' because I've got something more important in my other arm. I'm whipping up lots of frittatas and omelets.

I had the opportunity to go to law school, and my dad, who was an accountant, couldn't believe I wanted to walk away from that and start cooking.

These days I travel so much it's hard to get into a routine. When I'm on the road, I tend to use hotel gyms. When I'm home in L.A., I like to hike and hit the surf. All in all, I try to keep a balanced diet and exercise routine, which has stood me in good stead to date.

I think my cooking these days is a lot more relaxed from when I was working in professional kitchens. Spending time in people's kitchens made me realize that people want to eat healthy meals that are easy to prepare, with minimal ingredients that can be made on a budget.

There are probably close to a million people in the hospitality industry here in the United States, and there are probably only a few hundred opportunities in the food media industry.

My American home is L.A., which is the ultimate city for 365 days of summer.

You do tend to miss that repetition of day in and day out in a restaurant. I would like to open someplace where I can get back in touch with that side of my restaurant background. It is something we have plans to do and not sure how or when, but it is not too far away.

Stay away from restaurants that have menus in five languages. That's always a tourist trap. You want to eat where the locals eat.

I'm not one of those people who sits at dinner on their iPhone all night. I'm either working or I'm not. I've gone down that path where you sleep with your phone beside the bed and send an email just before you put your head down and check everything again when you wake up, and I don't like it.

I love how the men stand around cooking the barbie while the women have done all the work beforehand doing the marinade and making the salads and then everybody says, 'what a great barbie' to the guy cooking. A barbecue is just the ultimate blokes' pastime, isn't it?

After years of working in professional kitchens, and then spending so much time in a lot of different home kitchens, I realized that there's a huge gap in the market where you have people who develop cookware but who don't actually cook.

Smell is so powerful, you know. My grannies would both bake things like shortbreads and cookies. I think whenever I smell those kinds of things it really takes me back to my childhood.