Bobby Flay Quotes

Becoming the first Indian woman to compete on Food Network's 'Iron Chef' and 'Next Iron Chef' was really a great accomplishment and led to my spot as a judge on 'Chopped.'

When you have a chef that wants to be in the spotlight, maybe after one or two appearances on a show, they think they're at a certain level that they haven't reached yet in the kitchen. Shows like 'Top Chef', 'Hell's Kitchen' have helped bring attention to the culinary world.

It's a Catch-22. If you don't have money, you can't get the media to focus on what you're saying. And without the focus of the media, you can't raise the money.

I want to be Jacques Pepin. I want to have a nice 50-, 60-year career. I want to be on PBS when I'm 70-something, still kicking it, having a great time, showing up in Aspen to sign cookbooks. I just want to have a nice, big, long career.

The early part of my career was the 1990s, and I was living in New York working as an actor. It was the world I was in. A lot of companies had a great deal of money.

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.

It's wild how chefs have become like rock stars.

I was lucky enough to have great mentors both in the culinary world and in the world of chefs who became celebrities. Bobby Flay is one of my dearest friends and a tremendous mentor for me. Mario Batali is the same way. They began doing TV a little before me and they showed me the way.

I became friends with a lot of chefs. I was a judge on 'Top Chef' last year. It was a dream come true.

It is great to add some glamour to the food industry, like television shows have done for the food world and inspiring people to work in the industry. The flip side of that is unfortunately people think that after they get their qualifications, they get their invitation to compete on 'Top Chef.'

Did I ever think about TV stardom? I don't watch a lot of TV. I wasn't even aware of the phenomenon of what was going on in food television, what you started with the Food Network.

I watched the first week of 'Hell's Kitchen'. It was fascinating to see Marco Pierre White because I've only ever seen him in moody photographs.

In 1981, we opened Felidia, and the newspapers, the city papers, the big timers came, and I got invited on the 'Today Show' and so on. A lot of food luminaries would come to Felidia - Julia Child, James Beard, they all came.

We are not really privy to all that crazy stuff that goes on in the show. I go to work, eat, and talk about food. The wild things happen when we aren't around. I expected Top Chef to last three or four seasons and we are now shooting season ten.

The first time I was given money to shop for myself, I was 13 and staying with my godmother in New York. I went to Clinique and bought the three-step acne programme and felt so grown-up.

There's no shortage of projects we want to build. There's a shortage of money.

I can not enter the ring on the money basis. First, because, in the main, it is wrong and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money.

I went to New York in '87 to write for 'Saturday Night Live.'

I never knew I would go this far, but I was told by people it wouldn't happen, and now I own four restaurants, and I have one of the best shows on the Food Network. I'm living in the Super Bowl of food.

I did a lot of 'NYPD Blues' and 'Law & Orders' and a couple of other ones that were shot in New York earlier in my career.

You'll see me on 'Top Chef' someday. My Midwestern hospitality needs an outlet, you know?

I wanted to study at the Art Students League in New York when I was young, but I didn't have the money. Then I was fortunate enough to become Johnny Cougar Mellencamp. At the time, I thought I'd make a couple of records and get back to painting. It never dawned on me that I'd be 64 years old and still making music.

TV sort of picked up for me before my theater career did.

I worked a lot on 'Conan' as an actor, and when I moved to New York, a lot of my friends were on the first staff of that show. I started doing bit parts, which was the first thing I'd done on camera in front of a live audience.

It's an interesting thing to come to New York and do a television show. You're doing 10 hours of content in four and a half months. Eighty-hour weeks are par for the course.