Andrew Zimmern

As a young boy growing up in New York City, we would spend our summers on the South Fork of Long Island. My dad would take me down to the beach at low tide. We would walk a mile down to the jetties, and he would lower me by my ankles into the crevices between the massive boulders to grab at huge ropes of mussels.

Surrounded by a sweltering state known for its staunch conservatism, Austin is an oasis. It's home to the University of Texas, which continuously fosters a well-educated youth culture who have been funneling their collective creative energy into building a vibrant music, film, and technology scene for decades.

I get asked to speak to a lot of different groups, one of the best parts of my job hosting a show on the Travel Channel, 'Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern.' I take viewers to the far corners of the globe and introduce them to other cultures by exploring the foods they eat - at times, pretty strange stuff.

The summer after college, I got a job as a chef at Conscience Point Inn in Southampton. I spent the summer on the water and cemented my expertise with seafood. I've always gravitated toward places that do seafood.

The biggest thing that I learned is when you're building something - especially a project that requires partners - you have to make sure that there is a lot of overlapping desire and a lot of overlapping alignment with the people that you're doing work with.

Thanks to my parents, who had me traveling around the world mouth-first, I knew from a young age I wanted a career in food.

I lost an apartment. l became homeless for 11 months and squatted in a building on Sullivan Street in lower Manhattan.

The restaurant industry in New York in the '80s was a good place to hide out if you had issues.

Don't ripen picked tomatoes in the sun. Put underripe tomatoes and stone fruits in a paper bag in cool, dark place, and magic happens. And never, ever store them in the fridge: they turn mushy and flavorless.

I serve on a lot of charitable boards - the areas of mental health parity, services for those that are underserved, and certainly children's rights are things that I believe in very, very strongly.

Way back in the day, I used to cook for Thomas Keller at Rakel in New York City. Keller is a down to earth, kind, supportive person. I wish people could see that.

The big mistake people make is eating their grilled beef hot. I prefer room temperature or cool. When the meat rests and starts to get cool, all of that fat goes back into the muscles and becomes much more tender.