“My favorite fall or winter lunch is big steaming bowls of soup. I usua...” — Ina Garten Quote

My favorite fall or winter lunch is big steaming bowls of soup. I usually invite people for around 12:30 and have two hearty soups like shrimp corn chowder and lentil sausage soup, which can be made a day or two ahead.

I use other cookbooks for inspiration. I must say I tend to cook from my own cookbooks for parties.

If you think about a Thanksgiving dinner, it's really like making a large chicken.

I measure everything, because I always think that if I've spent so much time making sure this recipe was exactly the way I want it, why would I want to throw things into a pot?

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.

There are some things, like sushi, that I'll still choose white for, because its flavor is so unobtrusive. But I actually prefer the nutty intensity of brown rice in stir-fries, grain bowls, and as my go-to grainy side dish.

You're judged on Super Bowls, and that's the standard.

I'm not going anywhere. My dad lived to be 102. And we've got Super Bowls to win.

Jerry Rice had won two Super Bowls already by the time he got to his ninth year in the league. That's what it's all about: winning that ring.

Our little cat comes for a snuggle, then the big cat mews for a stroke and moves a few paces, then another stroke, then another few paces, until we realise he has mewed us into the kitchen where their food bowls are. So they eat, we eat, and then we get on with our days.