My first book is really about heat. That book, for me, was an exploration of heat as ingredient. Why we don’t talk about heat as an ingredient, I don’t quite understand, because it is the common ingredient to all cooking processes.

Take ice. Ice is fascinating to me. Ice is the one thing in our world that went from an agricultural product to being manufactured.

I can’t talk about anything or write about anything if I don’t understand it. So a lot of the stuff that I go through and a lot of the time that I spend is understanding.

I kept thinking, ‘Somebody has to make a food show that is actually educational and entertaining at the same time… a show that got down to the ‘why things happen.’ Plus, I hated my job – I didn’t think it was very worthwhile.

I love poking fun at myself. I have a rather mean sense of humor.

I had kicked around the idea for Good Eats when I was directing commercials.

Although I don’t take myself very seriously, I do take my work extraordinarily seriously.

My college degree was in theater. But the real reason, if I have any success in that milieu, so to speak, is because I spent a lot of years directing, I spent a lot of years behind the camera.

For me, it was kind of like going into the military or something. And anybody – any male – who has ever worked in a French kitchen knows what I am talking about when I say that.

My first book is really about heat. That book, for me, was an exploration of heat as ingredient. Why we don’t talk about heat as an ingredient, I don’t quite understand, because it is the common ingredient to all cooking processes.

I have nothing but sympathy for the people who are forced to work with me. I’m better now at picking out those that want to play that game with me, and those that don’t.

So I quit my job and went to the New England Culinary Institute for the full two years and worked in the restaurant industry after that until finally I thought I had a grasp on what I needed to do what I do.

Last year, I made a refrigerator in my basement. And I needed to because I needed to figure how – you know there is no such thing as “cold.” There is only less heat.

My feeling has always been that ‘Good Eats’ would have never happened had it been left to a committee.

I like television. I still believe that television is the most powerful form of communication on Earth – I just hate what is being done with it.

The problem is I am both a procrastinator and a power junkie, so I am very frustrating to work with.

I looked for a very long time, knowing that it had to happen, but it took me a long time to find someone with the same background and whatnot and I finally found him.

I’m going from doing all of the work to having to delegate the work – which is almost harder for me than doing the work myself. I’m a lousy delegator, but I’m learning.

Recipe writers hate to write about heat. They despise it. Because there aren’t proper words for communicating what should be done with it.

Seriously. I’m not very bright, and it takes a lot for me to get a concept – to really get a concept. To get it enough that it becomes part of me. But when it happens I get real excited about it.

A lot of food shows need only to tempt. Some food shows only need to inspire, to empower. And there are a lot of shows that do that.

I love to have battles of the wits with people that can dish fast and dirty – and it leads to problems occasionally, ’cause I can sound mean without attempting to be mean.

Enough people have now mentioned Bill Nye the Science Guy to me that I now desperately avoid it all costs.