Ina Garten

“I love Alton Brown's show 'Good Eats,' about the chemistry of food. It's really thoughtful.”

“The thing about all my food is that everything is a remembered flavor. Maybe it's something I had as a child or maybe it's something I had in Milan, but I want it to taste better than you ever thought.”

“I worked for the Office of Management and Budget in the White House, on nuclear energy policy. But I decided it would be much more fun to have a specialty food store, so I left Washington D.C. and moved to the Hamptons. And how glad I am that I did!”

“My extravagance is my garden - it's the first thing I look at every morning when I wake up. It gives me so much pleasure.”

“I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand, a warm smile on my face, and great music in the background, because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start.”

“If you think about a Thanksgiving dinner, it's really like making a large chicken.”

“I absolutely adore Thanksgiving. It's the only holiday I insist on making myself.”