Michael Symon

“Every lesson I learned as a kid was at the dinner table. Being Greek, Sicilian and Ruthenian - we are an emotional bunch. It is where we laughed, cried and yelled - but most importantly, whe...”

“I always tell my employees, the busier it gets, the slower you should cook. When you run around like a crazy person, that's when things go wrong.”

“It's not always possible to sit down and eat at home in this day and age of fast-paced living, but if you are going to eat out, do so as a family and support all the great local places in yo...”

“I'm a firm believer that all this packaged stuff that Americans are buying up in gobs is making them fatter.”

“People come up to me all the time and say, 'Oh, I love to watch Food Network,' and I ask them what they cook, and they say, 'I don't really cook.' They're afraid, they're intimidated, they k...”

“I love doing demonstrations. I think to be a great chef you have to be a great teacher. I love doing classes with people who love food and enjoy food, bringing them all around one table so t...”

“I'm lucky that my restaurant partners are my wife Liz and Doug Petkovic. We opened our first restaurant over 15 years ago. And we didn't open up our second restaurant for almost ten years. S...”

“I don't think any other holiday embraces the food of the Midwest quite like Thanksgiving. There's roasted meat and mashed potatoes. But being here is also about heritage. Cleveland is really...”

“On 'Chopped,' the time goes down a bit and there are several ingredients, usually one that makes no sense whatsoever with the rest of the ingredients. So it gets you out of your culinary com...”