My dad never explained anything growing up.

I have a good flavor memory.

Around the time I opened my second restaurant, Etta's, I had just finished judging at the Jack Daniels World Invitational BBQ Championship in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Back home in Seattle, my goal was to recreate the sweet and smoky taste of that BBQ using our local wild king salmon instead of pig.

Cooks are an undervalued, awesome profession.

We tend to be more environmental at home than at work, regardless of the industry we're in.

China has leapfrogged into this information age, and Web users have grown very significantly, which knocked down the cost of doing the environmental transparency.

I've been making pieces dealing with environmental issues at least since 2004; I mean, I did stuff for the Sierra Club and the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge even back in the 1990s. But somewhere a little after 2004, Hummer hits me up. I'm like, 'Are you kidding me?'

Among the laundry list of threats to our world, climate change more often than not makes these challenges worse.