Food is always a favorite on my docket when I go somewhere.
If I host something, even if it's just dinner at my house, I like the event to move. So that means cocktails in the family room, and then moving outside and having appetizers on the patio, and then moving to dinner at the dining table. It's just the idea of the event being curated to every little detail.
We had cocktail parties and I'd stay up until 5 in the morning.
Americans will eat anything if it is toasted and held together with a couple of toothpicks and has lettuce sticking out of the sides, preferably a little wilted.
Cheese and jam are really nice. Cheese and apple as well. Cheese and grapes are good.
When I wrote my cookbook, 'I Love Crab Cakes,' I asked some of my best chef buddies to contribute recipes.
I had my first French meal and I never got over it. It was just marvelous. We had oysters and a lovely dry white wine. And then we had one of those lovely scalloped dishes and the lovely, creamery buttery sauce. Then we had a roast duck and I don't know what else.
I'll never understand those greasy little deep-fried wings most bars serve.
There's nothing I hate more than nothing.
Almost every time we get together with family or friends, the conversation ends up being about food.
Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me; they remind me of one's childhood that one goes through wondering what the next course is going to be like - and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres.
Without peanuts, it isn't a cocktail party.
My favorite type of food is probably Italian. But I love steakhouses. I love Mexican Food. I mean, I really like it all.
I cannot stand when you go to a wedding and get fed tiny portions. I want everyone to have a good feed on my wedding day, so I plan on having several types of sausage, mash, and gravy up for grabs. Every guest will have a Yorkshire pudding, too!
We had only snacks last time, I think it was OK for a day time menu. But this time it will be late night when people gather so we should add some proper meals.
Everybody can cook. You don't have to do anything fancy. You can do a nice antipasto spread with sardines, anchovies, some meats, marinated vegetables, fruits, cheese, nuts, and crackers.
If it's a cocktail party, I generally make five or six different things, and I try to choose recipes that feel like a meal: a chicken thing, a fish or shrimp thing, maybe two vegetable things, and I think it's fun to end the cocktail party with a sweet thing.
Nothing says holidays, like a cheese log.
While eating your appetizer, don't be concerned with dessert.
Often for hors d'oeuvres, I serve room temperature vegetables, something like that, so that the main course might be quite rich but the first course has balanced it out.
Savoury cakes are very popular in France, they appear in boulangeries and with a side salad on lunch menus in chic cafes, but they're most likely to appear at a picnic.
In heaven, after antipasti, the first course will be pasta.
I'm not really a cake man. I'm more a savoury guy.
At my dinner parties, I like to serve cheese after the main course because you still have red wine in the glass, and it goes very well with the cheese. And that is what they do in France, and I think they set a good example.
I've never offered coupons or deals. I'm not fancy enough to do soup or salads, hot breakfasts, or smoothies.
