INTRODUCTION

“Do you cook at home?”

I’ve been asked this question more times than there are grains of salt in a shaker. It’s easy to understand. Fans of Top Chef, the show I’ve been on for over a decade, don’t see me at dawn padding around the kitchen in my pajamas, plotting the first meal of the day, or standing at my stove after work, eager to cook dinner for my family. They don’t see the stacks of syrupy Sunday morning pancakes I make with my daughter, Dahlia, or the happy chaos that ensues (and gives our home kitchen that truly lived-in feel) when my husband, Jeremy, and I invite friends for dinner. Instead, they see the discerning critic in a cocktail dress, with styled hair and polished makeup, hyperanalyzing ingredients and cooking techniques.

The truth is, my delicious dual-decade career in the food industry didn’t begin with a bespoke seat at the Top Chef Judges’ Table, or with any of the many twists and turns that guided my professional path up until that point. Instead, it began with four words hollered by my mother to my two brothers and me each and every day of our young lives: “Alan! Eric! Gail!… SUPPER!”

My mom, a freelance food writer and part-time cooking teacher, was a natural at the stove. Her call to the family dinner table—seven nights a week, no excuses—got us kids up and running, no matter what we were doing. She made it clear, both by her words and the heartfelt effort she made to shop for and prepare great meals, that our nightly time together truly mattered. It didn’t hurt to know that the dishes she put down in front of us would be utterly delicious.

In addition to her emphasis on cooking for family and friends, my mom’s ease and spontaneity in the kitchen, as well as her drive to continually expand her food knowledge, made an impression on me at any early age. She would cull the great markets of our home city of Toronto, filling her shopping bags with ingredients that were exotic at the time: Chinese bok choy and Vietnamese rambutans; Portuguese churrasco and Greek sheep’s milk cheeses; sweet Indian ras malai and tart Middle Eastern sumac. I have vivid memories of so many of her dishes and now clearly see her influence on my own passions in the kitchen—my liberal use of dill and penchant for zucchini; my obsession with pickles; the thrill I get when challenged by an unfamiliar cut of meat; my craving for tandoori chicken, served just as my mom was taught to make it by her close friend from Pakistan.