to hear that he empathizes with the things that we re going through, figuring out who you are as a chef, where you belong in this country as an asian-american. do you belong in asia? you re not asian enough or you re not american enough. he understood that and he walked us through where we belong in this food culture. he for a lot of people, even outside of the industry, he really opened them up, not just to trying new foods but to branching out a little bit and to talking to people. and even you, you say he encouraged you to travel. absolutely. i didn t do much traveling i got to new york and i didn t do much traveling. you start to watch his show and tony gives you these beautiful bullet points. he basically was your personal fixer. he showed you where to eat and where to go and what market to go to. and food tv, the landscape isn t
network president called the idea for a 24 hour food channel the worst idea i ever heard. so what was food tv like 20 years ago and how did this network come about? well, it s funny because the first president of food network you are talking about is reese shonfeld, who is also the first president of cnn. he was a guy who thought of food network as cnn with stoves. so his idea was to tape many, many new cooking shows every day on an extremely low budget which cnn of course also was in the early days, and it was no one was really watching back then. this was no one thought this was a good idea. it wasn t just his wife. it took about six or seven years before anybody actually started watching the network. so what happened, 9/11 played a role, right, in the company s success? people were looking for comfort food, something other than the big story, and what had been built on high end chefs and
encourage overeating or indulges too much in unhealthy habits. did you come away feeling that way? your twitter diet is something everybody should copy. there are many people out there and many great chefs out there who did learn how to cook kale and great food from watching the food network. some of those shows are still there. but the network is in the business of getting people to watch more food tv. it s not in the business of teaching us how to eat healthy or how to use a knife exactly properly. but that said, even sometimes they go to a diner that serves kale. it s not about dumping things into a pot and stirring anymore. it s about competition. are they able to reinvent themselves every few years the way cable channels have to or have they fallen on harder times
book just because it s the most personal thing that i ve done and my show because both of those are most representative of me. probably top chef is the show i m most proud to be i apart of. i just think it changed food tv. i think if you look at the food network pre top chef and post top chef it s a different network. and if you look at you know, i think the title of top chef now means something to a whole generation of chefs. richard. you are top chef. what? you say top chef is one of the things you re most proud of. let s get mr. blaze to come in here. would you like an alcoholic beverage? you know what? i ll just have a cucumber soda or something like that. he said that his book, he s proud of his book and he s proud of top chef, which you re a part of. what do you think about that? about what he s proud of? i mean, that s amazing, that part of one of the things that i m the most proud of is, you know, winning top chef. and you know, he certainly is
parents. we coddle and spoil our children and give them trophies when they don t deserve it as it is. an entire company catered to a 13-year-old. this pope or whatever her name is is unsufferable. good for her, right? this is a great thing. people particularly in this country have this notion that anytime there is something or they think is unfair they have to go to the government for a solution. she didn t do that. she used her own marketing ability to put this out there and got enough support that she changed the company s mind and got them to do something. she used the free market. i support that. i said i thought it was stupid not to market because you are cutting out 50% of your potential market. from a strictly business perspective, it makes no sense. i think they heard me say that. i can tell you that kids love watching food tv. this is not self-serving. little boys and girls love watching things come together. you know what, that makes total sense. they are not at the