Andrew Zimmern

I love the Mexican chapulines. These little crickets are beautifully roasted with salt and lime.

It might seem strange to feast on Guinea pig, but Ecuadorians love to eat cuy. Personally, I think it's a phenomenal alternative to pork or chicken. High in protein, low in fat, cheap and easy to raise. Oh, and cuy tastes great, much like roast pig. You might call it a pet, but I prefer to call it dinner.

Any decision that I make, anything that I do, every single consideration of my day goes through the prism of what my former experience has been.

I consider a perfect hot dog on the street to be as valid a food experience as dinner at Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

In everything I do, I want people to get the message of acceptance, to learn not to practice contempt without investigation. I have an obligation to do it.

When I was 13, I came back from summer camp - summer of '74 - and my mother had had an accident during surgery and was in an oxygen tent in a coma. It was so traumatic. My parents had been divorced for six or seven years at that point, and it was sort of the seminal event of my life.

Everything happens in the kitchen. Life happens in the kitchen.

My life gets better every year.

I can't tell you how many times I get into a taxicab in New York or Los Angeles, and I'm talking to somebody who is a recent immigrant who was a doctor or lawyer or engineer or professor in the country they just came from. They're starting over again in life, and I think the majority of people out there can relate to that.

I am grateful to have my life back and for the friends and family who never gave up on me, for a God who was there when I was ready to find him. I am grateful for so much, that every day, one day at a time, is Thanksgiving.

In tribal Botswana, I received some woven necklaces and a handmade bow with three poison arrows. It's framed and hanging on the wall in my living room and is, without a doubt, one of my favorite possessions.

We will, as Americans, inhale another culture on a fork before we try their music or their art or even, God forbid, hang out with the actual people.