The food to me is just a hook, it's a button, it happens to be the social construct and the cultural totem that I'm most familiar with. So of course I built the show around food because it's where I'm familiar.

I don't want people to judge books by their cover, I want people to be open minded to the rest of the world.

I don't understand why we have laws that prevent someone from walking a school campus and selling alcohol or drugs but somehow can't feed our children who attend those schools a healthy balanced diet, which I think is a lot worse. It's offensive and I think anyone who isn't offended by it is an idiot.

I have a bigger problem at food events when I turn over a wine glass and people insist on pouring me a glass of wine. I have a bigger problem with drunk wine representatives, drunk wine salesmen at food events who keep trying to push a glass in my hand.

Being honest about where you come from and what your story is is the only way to connect to other people, to really connect with them.

The food stamp program is the largest piece of the Farm Bill, it's a massive amount of money, but not only has it been good for families that need it, but it's been fantastic for local economies.

The whole decision to do my show was that I was trying to true up my work life and my personal life and I wanted the principles in both of them to be the same. And the only way that I could think of to do that was to make a show about exploring cultures through food that demonstrated those principles with every story that we told.

There's a great book by my friend Nate Garvis called Naked Civics that was very important in my development as someone with a social conscious and that has become, I guess, something of an activist.

I know what it's like to be hungry. I know what it's like to be homeless. I know what it's like to have to choose between breaking the law and feeding yourself. I know what it's like to take meals at shelters and at Salvation Army facilities. I know what it's like to beg for money on the streets.

We currently reside in the wealthiest and most powerful civilization in the history of the world. The idea that someone should go hungry or be without the bare essentials of life is, to me... It's not shameful, I actually think it's criminal.

Don't eat till you're full, eat till you're tired.

I was just thrown out of the barista parlor. Came to close to the Slayer. Amazing place!

I think right now the focus of people involved in food issues have to be legislative resolution at the county, city, state, and national level. I just don't think we can run away from it anymore.

You never know when the next person to shake your hand at an autograph session, or the next guy you bump into on line at the pizza parlor, that could be your best friend for the rest of your life. Or it could be the person that two years later pushes you out of the way of a speeding bus. I mean, you just don't know.

I'm always surprised on my social accounts that people assume that because you have a job in television you don't have a political opinion, or don't have a family, or don't have an interest in the rest of the country. It's just absolutely shocking to me how closed minded some people are.

Please be a traveler, not a tourist. Try new things, meet new people, and look beyond what's right in front of you. Those are the keys to understanding this amazing world we live in.