I'm so bad at self-care.

I've always just operated with the attitude that if I work just as hard as I can, everything will be fine.

I have makeup that I can do in 15 minutes, 10 minutes, or five minutes, depending on what I'm doing that day. On a day when I'm shooting, it's 15 minutes. Five minutes is when I'm running around that day, and it's no big deal.

For a while I thought I would work in museums, so my first job after college was an internship at the 9/11 Museum. I quickly found out that I did not want to do that. So I signed up for culinary school, and directly following culinary school, I went to graduate school at McGill.

As a kid, I was overly studious, overly serious, very academically driven. It was important to me on a cellular level to do well. And then I went to college at Harvard, and I relaxed a little bit.

I love the Grub Street Diet. I am particularly fascinated by what people eat; I think it says a lot about people.

One thing I hear a lot is that people feel less stressed out after they watch 'Gourmet Makes.' There's a transference of their stress onto me.

Generally I don't find that basting does a lot of anything! I think what makes the most difference is treating the turkey ahead of time with a dry brine. It really does provide a very moist result.

Lame blades can dull relatively quickly, so after slashing several loaves the blade won't slice through the dough with tremendous ease. (When this happens, don't throw it away - it's still sharp enough to score duck or pork skin, or shave paper-thin slices of garlic and chives, like a hot knife through butter).

The last time I ordered soup in a restaurant was - well, let me see - possibly never. That's because in my mind, soup is something to be made and eaten at home, ideally with a cuddly animal at your feet in front of a blazing fireplace while the wind whips outside.

I brought babkallah to a party and people freaked. They hovered over like it was a newborn baby, oo-ing and ah-ing. Its beauty didn't prevent them, however, from devouring the entire thing within minutes. It makes a lovely hostess gift, as it's both novel and delicious.

For baked goods where lightness is a prized attribute - almost all cakes, some cookies - it's important to start with room-temperature butter.

Sometimes there is dogma in baking and sometimes there is not - you just have to know when to break the rules and when to follow them.

I always keep some variety of dumpling in my freezer for convenience, but frozen homemade pierogi are a special treat.

Always bake in the center of the oven. A pan placed too close to the bottom of the oven will receive more heat radiating from the oven floor, baking it faster from the bottom. The reverse is true of something baked on the top rack. Always bake in the center for the most even baking and browning all around.

You must pre-bake the bottom crust of a custard pie, but this is a tricky step in the pie-making process. Without the presence of filling the crust can slump down into the plate as it bakes, necessitating pie weights to help keep its shape. Then, once you remove the weights to blind bake the crust, the bottom puffs.

No stuffing is complete without chopped onion and celery - they're the building blocks. If you want to deepen the flavor, consider adding leeks, sage, and/or hardy greens.

Running - it keeps me balanced, energetic, and primed for pasta intake.

The first time I ever deep-fried something, I was terrified. I was making yeasted jelly donuts, and I was so nervous that I fried them, unblinking, with a pounding heart and sweaty palms.

If you think about it, composed salads are like nachos (I'll explain). When you're eating a plate of nachos, it's always a bummer when you get to those naked, topping-less chips on the bottom of the pile. It's the same with salads. No one wants to find a naked leaf on the end of their fork.

Generally, if you're a baker who's still learning the ropes, substitutions can be risky. It's always best to make a recipe the first time as written, and only after that initial success should you make substitutions.

Home cooks are finding inspiration in the past, digging up centuries-old recipes more familiar to the likes of Thomas Jefferson than Thomas Keller.

Even as a little kid I knew that spinning a dreidel on the floor for literal pennies was a sad consolation for the joys of trimming a Christmas tree.

I don't like a too-perfect cake. You want people to know it came from your kitchen and not the cake case in the bakery aisle.