Quotes from Andrew Zimmern

Be aware of what you cook tomatoes with. The high acid content of the tomato slows down the cooking process of some other foods. Dried beans cooked with tomatoes added to the pot can take up to 20 percent more cooking time than beans without tomatoes added.

Too many children and adults go hungry every day.

Remember for stir-frying not to use a wok bigger than 16 inches. Once it has food in it, you won't be able to work very efficiently.

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.

Some of the oddest foods I've encountered are 'American' foods represented internationally.

If there's one thing I've learned after a lifetime of dining on delicacies like blood pudding, sea squirts, and camel kidneys, even folks who wouldn't come within 100 yards of a Cambodian tarantula want to hear what it's like to chomp on one!

My phone is my favorite travel gadget because it has my translator.

Yelp is - I mean, Yelp's not even good for looking up the restaurant's phone number because, you know, on the site, they just want you to read their reviews and look at their ads. They don't even actually want to give you the information about the restaurant or the menu.

After attending The Dalton School and then Vassar College, I began cooking in New York City restaurants helmed by Anne Rosenzweig, Joachim Splichal and Thomas Keller.

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.

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.

Sometimes I have to shake my head at how much work it can take to track down a handful of food. Perfect example: I spent a whole day in the Amazon rainforest, in Ecuador, scouring the trunks of dead palm trees for grubs.

I've spent time in the coastal Carolinas and have seen what small business development has done to maintain the wetlands and reestablish the fisheries and secure jobs for the people that make their living off the water.

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

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'd dreamed of being in the food business from the moment my globetrotting parents introduced me to the foods of the world during childhood trips to Europe and Asia.

The corner of the 'food media' that I think is troublesome to me is the shows on TV that don't really have a point or don't have a lesson to be learned. If you don't have a point, or if there's not some part of it that is meaningful and can change someone's life, in my old age, I'm just not into it.

I love bugs. And as the first person to popularize their eating in America, I take special pride in seeing their appreciation soar.

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

I love the Minnesota State Fair, and I go with my family every August for nearly all 12 days.

For most people, carp isn't just garbage fish - it's an invasive species.

I'm no saint, and I don't want to come across like one, but there is not a day that goes by that I'm not doing something for someone else with a very large chunk of my time.

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.