A conversation with the author and New York Times cooking columnist.

Question: What are your first memories ofrnenjoying food? rnrn

MarkrnBittman:  They're all jumbled.  They're all jumbled together, but theyrnreally are associated with both my grandmothers.  My father's mother, who died when I was pretty young, I dornremember going to her house and she lived in a walk up tenement in the Bronxrnwhere my father grew up.  She livedrnin the same apartment in which my father grew up.  And I do remember he making blitzes or pirogi or somethingrnlike that from scratch, making the dough, rolling it out, filling it withrncheese or potatoes and cooking them, and that was pretty incredible because Irndon’t have – my mother didn’t do that stuff, so I don’t have a lot of that butrnI have that little bit of that. rnThen my other grandmother she was the one who really did the big familyrnfunctions and would cook for 15 and 20 people at once and would scream atrneverybody I the kitchen and da, da, da and she made very, very classic easternrnEuropean Jewish food and was good at it. rnI don’t remember anything particular.  I mean, I remember eating many different things.  I don’t have a single memory though.

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Question: How did you first get interested inrncooking?

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MarkrnBittman:  It was kind of self-defense.  I grew up in New York and the food wasrninteresting, varied, not particularly great at home but out on the streets itrnwas good and in some of my friends parents' houses it was good and then I wentrnaway to school in Massachusetts where the food was abysmal and I startedrncooking out of self-defense.  Irnmean it was just the only I could imagine to get half way decent food was tornlearn how to make it myself and it really began there and then continuedrnthrough a series of roommates, some of whom cooked and some didn’t, but all ofrnwhom were interested in what I was cooking.  Because I was just following recipes, there was no training,rnbut there were good recipes so it worked.

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And then I had arnchild and started cooking for her and then I started writing about food.  I mean at that point I knew -- it hadrnbeen eight or ten years and I knew enough about food to write a little about itrnand then, no pun intended, they fed off of each other.

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So I was writingrnabout food and I was cooking and I had to cook in order to write better aboutrnfood, so there's incentive to cook more which gave me more to write about.  There you have it.  I still have not ever had any formalrntraining.

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Question: What are some basic techniques thatrnnovice chefs can use?

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MarkrnBittman: Well, let'srnjust distinguish between chefs and cooks because I think this isrnimportant.  A chef is a person -- Irnknow the word is thrown around a lot but a chef is a person who runs thernrestaurant.  So, people who cook atrnhome are cooks.  There's nothingrnwrong with that.  People who likernto cook are cooks and I think that's a word that's been sadly denigrated and Irnthink it’s a lovely word.  It's anrnimportant word.  So what are thernmost experienced -- what are the most important techniques for shall we sayrnnovice cooks?

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Well, reading Irnthink is probably very important technique because probably the best way tornlearn how to cook remains getting a couple of decent cook books and workingrnyour way through them and paying attention to what they're asking and learningrna few of the terms and it's such an easy – it's so much easier than playingrntennis, for example, that it's just a matter of starting to do it and thenrndoing it over and over again until you kind of get it. 

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So it has more –rnit's presented as a highly skilled occupation and indeed for real chefs orrnpeople running restaurants or people doing demonstrations on Food Televisionrnit's not that easy.  But for mostrnof us it's not any harder than driving a car, it just needs a little practice.

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Question:  What ten ingredients should everyonernhave in their kitchen?

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Mark Bittman: Well, off the top of my head withoutrnlooking at my pantry, garlic, olive oil, that's two.  It's sort of a hard question because do you want to countrnrice and pasta?  Do you want torncount vinegar and lemons?  Do yournwant to count onions and eggs?  Maybernthat gets you close to ten.  Thernthing is that there are – I'd there are probably 30, somewhere between 25 andrn50, but say 30, ingredients that should be in pretty much every kitchen all therntime.  Ten is not going to dornit.  You can't do much with ten butrnif you have 30 you can start doing serious cooking and if you have those 30 andrnyou stop at the store and pick up the piece of meat and fish and somernvegetables, something fresh, you're completely in business.  You can cook half of what there is torncook in all of the world.

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Question: What are common bad habits of at-homerncooks?

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MarkrnBittman:  That's an interesting question.  People don’t use high enough heat andrnpeople don’t preheat their pans and their ovens and things like that enough.  If you really want to put a crust onrnsomething, the pan needs to be hot, the butter or oil needs to be hot.  I mean, these are things that trainedrnpeople learn.  Home cooks are arnlittle afraid -- tend to be a little afraid -- or beginning home cooks tend tornbe a little afraid of high heat. rnSo that's a mistake people make.

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Having lousyrnknives is a mistake people make and it's not that they don’t have expensivernknives, it's that they don’t have sharp knives.  On the other hand, spending too much money on cooking equipmentrnis a mistake a lot of people make because you don’t need to spend a lot ofrnmoney on cooking equipment.  Whatrnelse can I think of?

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Well,rnattitude.  Attitude is interestingrnbecause people tend to be intimidated by cooking and there's nothing to bernintimidated about it.  As I said atrnthe beginning, it's really pretty simple. rnSo the right attitude is the attitude of I'm going to get something donernand it's going to be good.  It'srnnot, "Oh, I'm afraid of this," but nor is it, "Oh, I'm going tornbe Bobby Flay and do something breathtaking."  It's just going to be I'm going to try – just like myrngrandma cooked for my mom I'm going to try to cook for my friends or my kids orrnwhatever, which is normal food, the food you like.

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Question: What ingredients and spices arernunappreciated?

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MarkrnBittman:  Well, spices in general go underrnappreciated by American cooks.  Irnmean, the spices that most Americans used in cooking tend to be the sort of yournmight call them warm spices or sweet spices like the kind of stuff you put inrnApple Pie: cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg, cloves, ginger a little bit.  Chilies are certainly becoming more andrnmore popular and that's great. 

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Mildrnchili powder is a wonderful ingredient that's still not fully appreciated.Pimenton, which is mild smoked paprika,rnwhich is a form of chili, so mild smoked chili powder is Spanish ingredient,rnreally fabulous.  All the Indianrnspices or Asian spices, however you want to call them, tend to bernunder-appreciated and these are really simple things to use.  I think part of the problem is when yournadd four or five spices to a recipe, it makes the recipe look long.  It makes the ingredient list look longrnand no one wants to see a long ingredient list.

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So, when writingrnrecipes one has to be careful but, you know, spices are really -- if yournreplace them every now and then so that they're fairly fresh, they're there,rnthey're easy to use, it's not a big deal and they make a huge difference.

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Question: What do you do when friends arerncoming over and you haven't got anything prepared?

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MarkrnBittman: I often don’trnfigure out what I am cooking until an hour before people come over but I makernsure there's food in the house and I think that's important.  It seems so obvious when you say it butrnso many people don’t do it.  

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If you have arnlot of food in the house cooking is much easier because now you have so manyrnoptions plus there's pressure on you to cook because you don’t a want the stuffrnto go bad.  So what I cook forrnpeople pretty much depends on what I have.  I try to always have, you know, something.  

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Question: Tell us about one of your dinnerrnparties.

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MarkrnBittman:I had made arndeal with a friend who was an architect and he designed an office for me andrnthe deal was that I was going to cook dinner for him and his wife and two ofrnhis friends and my wife. 

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So there wasrngoing to be six of us.  And we setrna date, I guess; he says we set a date. rnAnd that morning -- that afternoon actually, about two o'clock he calledrnand said what time do you want us to go over?  I had completely forgotten about it.  So I went shopping and I made -- I ranrnout to the store, I came back, I made – this is a long time ago -- but I madernroast chicken with vinegar, was sort of classic French recipe, some kind ofrnpotatoes, a salad, and I don’t know if I made or bought a bread and I madernchocolate mousse for dessert and I did that in about two hours, which, for me,rnis a lot of time in the kitchen for me; I don’t spend two hours in the kitchenrnthat often.

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The great thingrnwas the food was not that great.rnThe food was fine.  Therngreat thing was, a.) I got away with it and, b.) they thought it was fantasticrnand it was then that I realized that if you cook for people in your home they, a.) they're looking forward to it, b.) they're going to cut you so muchrnslack.  They're going to give yournevery benefit of the doubt. rnThey're going to be grateful and, therefore, the food is going to tasternbetter than it would if you were in a restaurant where the server was annoyingrnyou and you knew you were going to spend a lot of money and, you know, you hadrnto travel to get there and blah, blah, blah. 

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So I think itrnwas really – and that was probably 12 or 15 years ago.  So it was about halfway into my -- I'vernbeen cooking for 40 years, so it was two-thirds of the way into my life as arncook when I realized that you can do pretty much anything in your home if yourntake it seriously and do it as well as you could do it and your friends andrnfamily are really going to appreciate it.

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Question: What defines a Mark Bittman meal?

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MarkrnBittman:  My presence.  I guess there's other kinds of Mark Bittman meals.  Well really its simplicity, itsrnhonesty, it's not overdoing it. rnGenerally speaking, it's very few ingredients and very little techniquernand not that much time and its home cooking.  There's nothing fancy about it.  There's no pretense, I like to think there's nornpretense.  I mean this all -- itrnsounds too good to be true.  Itrnsounds like better than I am but it really is what I do.  So I guess I'll take some credit forrnit.

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Question: Can you be a food lover and arnhealthy eater?

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MarkrnBittman:  I think if you are a true food lover,rnyou are a healthy eater.  Well,rnfirst of all, the term foodie is completely ridiculous because for someone torn-- when you meet somebody and they say, "I really love to eat," Irnthink the appropriate answer is who doesn’t?  So, I mean look around.  Who do you know who is not a food lover?  Everybody's a food lover.

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The question isrndo you eat responsibly?  Do you eatrnfor your own benefit?  Do you eatrnfor your planets benefit and do you eat the best food possible?  If the answer to all of those things isrnyes then you're eating well.  Ifrnyou're eating, if your style of eating is bad for your body, if your style ofrneating is bad for the planet then you are not really eating good food.  You're eating lousy food and there'srnplenty -- as we know, there's plenty of lousy food around.

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Question: What is the most environmentallyrnresponsible way to eat?

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MarkrnBittman:  The principled way to eat, if you wererngoing to say, "I want to eat entirely for my own benefit, I want to eatrnentirely for the benefit of the planet, I want to eat in the most responsiblernway possible to minimize my carbon footprint, to minimize my impact overall, tornminimize my effect on animals," you would be a vegan.  That's the bottom line.

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Veganism is thernmost principled way to eat that there is. rnFrom the perspective of your own body, from the perspective of thernplanet, from the perspective of animals, very few people are going to bernvegans.  Let's be real.

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So what'srnnext?  I mean, if on the one handrnyou have vegans and on the other hand you have people who eat whatever theyrnfeel like eating, there's a middle ground.  The problem with the way most Americans eat right now isrnthat we are about as far from veganism as we could be.  So a vegan would get 100 percent of hisrnor her calories from plants. 

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Most Americansrnget 90 percent of their calories from processed food, junk food, and animalrnproducts.  So, the goal, I think,rnis to move in the direction of eating more unprocessed plant food than we dornnow and everybody's got a different starting place.  If you eat 20 cheeseburgers a week, or the equivalent, yournmight look at eating 15 cheeseburgers a week or the equivalent.  If you're eating 15, you might look atrneating 10 and so on, and I think if people think about what's best for theirrnbody, what's best for the planet, the answer is eating unprocessed plant foodrnand then think about how can I eat more of that stuff at the expense of meat,rnwhich was the question, but also at the expense of processed food and junkrnfood.

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Question: What are some of the main things yourncan do to eat healthily?

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MarkrnBittman: The idea is torneat as many unprocessed plants as you can. What arernplants?  Plants are vegetables,rnfruits, legumes, which means beans, nuts and seeds; what am I leaving out?  I think that's about it.  So the idea is to eat as manyrnunprocessed plants as you possibly can and to eat those instead of eatingrnprocessed foods, junk foods, and animal products. 

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Well, it worksrnfor me -- what's worked for me for just about three years now, what works forrnme is to eat a very, very strict diet of plants only and unprocessed plantsrnonly from the time I wake up in the morning until dinner time.  So from the time I wake up untilrnroughly dark I eat a lot of fruit, I eat a lot of vegetables, I eat some wholerngrains and sometimes I have some beans and that's pretty much it.  And then at night I eat whatever I wantrnand that’s, which includes meat, which includes wine and which includes pastarnand bread and stuff like that. 

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That's a hugernchange for me.  I think that if yournthink of your diet as a seesaw with the animal products, the processed or thernjunk food on the heavy side as it is for most people and the unprocessed plantsrnon the light side as it is for most people, I think for me my seesaw went fromrnlooking something like this to looking something like this.  I think to the extent other people canrneat that way they will have a lesser impact on the planet, improve theirrnhealth, probably lose weight, feel better.

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Question: Why did you decide to change the wayrnyou ate?

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MarkrnBittman:  Well I think I decided to change thernway I ate because of some of the things we've been talking about here.  One is that I recognize that one of thernhighest contributors to greenhouse gases and global warming is the industrialrnproduction of livestock.  So Irndecided okay that was one goo d reason to eat less meat.  The other good reason to eat less meatrnis that I was in my mid-50s and my health wasn't what it used to be.  So I was overweight, I had bad knees, Irnhad sleep apnea, had high cholesterol, I had high blood sugar or borderlinernhigh blood sugar, I think that's enough.

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SornI decided to change my diet and it's so obvious to everyone who pays anyrnattention to nutrition at all that if you want to be healthier the way to dornthat is as I've already said is to eat fewer animal products and eat lessrnprocessed and junk food.  So Irnstarted to do that and it worked. rnI lost 35 pounds; gained five of them back but hey.  Sleep apnea went away, I slept better,rnmy knees bothered me much less, in fact, they ran the New York marathon lastrnyear.  My cholesterol is back tornnormal and my blood sugar is back to normal.

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So it all workedrnand it's not a coincidence.  I meanrnno one would say it was a coincidence.

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Question: Are there any foods you avoid becausernof health reasons?

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Mark Bittman:  Actually not.  There's some things I don’t like.  But I think that it's important to recognize that there isrnno sort of single, I mean, arsenic and cyanide aside, there's not really arnsingle ingredient that's going to outright kill you.  There's actually some evidence that a single can of soda canrntrigger diabetes, but there's not a lot of evidence about that.  In general, one ingredient, one littlernkind of food, one meal, one day, even one week.  That's not what's determinant of your overall health or ofrnyour impact on the planet.  Whatrndetermines is your overall diet and if it's moving in the right direction,rnwhich for most Americans is towards plants and away from animal products andrnprocessed foods, than I think hip, hip, hooray.  That's the way to go.

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Question: Is it possible to be a great chef andrna vegan chef?

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MarkrnBittman: Yes, there isrna great vegan chef.  I mean, therernare a few at this point and yes, I think that it's -- actually, this is anrninteresting story, I met a vegan chef from Japan a couple of years ago.  Tiny, tiny woman, really interesting,rnand not a vegan in her personal life.  But she was a vegan chef.  She ran a small, maybe 12- or 20-seat, restaurant in Tokyornand everything was strictly vegan. rnAnd when I found out that she wasn't a vegan, I said I don't getrnthis.  I mean why would you choosernto -- it's not a matter of principle for you because you eat meat, you eatrnfish, why would you choose to narrow what you serve your customer when yournyourself eat from the broadest spectrum possible and she said it's like pen andrnink.  There are people who choosernto be artists in only pen and ink because they want to narrow the world inrnwhich they're looking at so as to more fully explore it and I want to narrowrnthe world in which I'm cooking so I can understand it better and she was anrnamazing, amazing chef.  She maderngreat, great stuff.

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Question: What do you think is behind the cultrnpopularity of food and cooking over the past decade?

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MarkrnBittman:  I'd be guessing to answer that questionrnand it’s a confluence of a bunch of things.  I mean, first off, I guess, is that we like fads, I mean wernlike trends.  So here's one thatrnhadn't been fully exploited. rnSecondly, Food Television really has had a huge impact.  I mean, cooking and eating as arnspectator sport, never before in history. rnSo that's had a huge impact. Third, I think, is the kind ofrninternationalization of food people -- not only people traveling and seeingrnfood from the rest of the world, but ingredients and types of cuisines andrnrestaurants arriving here in unprecedented numbers.

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So I think Irnguess the short answer is exposure but it still doesn’t explain walking into arnparty and having someone come up to you and say, "I'm a foodie," andrnthere's something about this sort of trendiness, it's like saying, I'm arnclothes person. 

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Well, yes, wernall wear clothes; I'm a clothes person, too. What does that -- **** designer orrnare you – is there a special kind of thing?

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The thing thatrnmakes me most upset about this big fad is that more people are not cooking andrnthat -- I think it's fine to watch other people cook but then people say,rn"Well, I'm too busy to cook," and they're too busy to cook becausernthey are watching people cook on television.  It doesn’t track for me.  I think it's really, really bad.

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Question: How important are organic foods, andrnhow truthful is the labeling?

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MarkrnBittman: One has tornhope that things that are certified organic are organic.  But what does organic mean?  It's a term that’s defined by thernUnited States Department of Agriculture. rnIt doesn’t mean anything or it doesn’t mean much about how the animalsrnare treated.  It doesn’t reallyrnmean much about what kind or what breed of the animals there are.  It doesn't mean anything in terms ofrnhow the workers who are raising these animals or farming these crops arerntreated.  Doesn’t mean anythingrnabout where the food is from. 

So does organicrnhave some meaning?  Yes, I thinkrnthe term organic has some meaning. rnBut I think that it's not the most important thing.  I won't go so far as to say it’s a redrnherring because I think there are some important things about it but I will sayrnthis.  The most important divisionrnin our style of eating right now is not organic versus non-organic and it's notrnlocal versus non-local.  It's plantsrnversus anything else and I don’t mean to be repetitive but the message is very,rnvery clear. 

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The way thatrnpeople can eat best is to eat less crap to put it bluntly.  And crap is processed food and junkrnfood and you can have organic processed food and you have organic junk food andrnthat food is maybe a little better than non-organic processed and junk food butrnit's not good food and that's the most important lesson we could learn, Irnthink.

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Question: Is it important to eat locally grown,rnseasonal foods?

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MarkrnBittman:  Well, again, I think the clear answerrnis that, as far as your body is concerned, a grape from Chile is better than arncheeseburger from around the corner. If you're willing to eat turnips, carrots,rnbread you bake yourself, frozen meat, a very limited diet, you can eat locallyrnalmost anywhere, at least in this country, all year round and that's great butrnit's expensive, it's inconvenient, and it takes dedication.

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I think it's arnswell idea and I think that ultimately for food to make sense in this country Irnthink we're going to see more regionalism and less food coming out ofrnCalifornia.  But I don’t thinkrnwe'll ever be at a place where we see no food coming out of California, unlessrnit falls into the sea, of course. rnAnd I think that if you want to be truly a local eater, you're not goingrnto be drinking it.  If you live inrnthe northeast, as I do, you're not going to be drinking any coffee.  You're not going to be drinking anyrncaffeinated tea.  You're not goingrnto be using any olive oil.  Therernare a lot of things you're just going to be missing out on.  That's fine if you think that that'srnthe highest priority.  There arernother priorities, I think. 

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I'm a fan ofrnlocal food.  I really like localrnfood, but to go back to the discussion of trendiness in food.  Everything need not be taken to anrnextreme and this is another thing that has been taken to an extreme.

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Question: What foods are your guilty pleasures?

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MarkrnBittman: If I'm drivingrnsay six hours and I decided to stop at Wendy's or whatever I guess there's arntwinge of guilt.  But there's alsornan excuse because you're away and, you know, you're busy and blah, blah, blahrnand I don’t exercise that excuse very often.  So I don’t really feel guilty about it.  I think what would make me feel guiltiest,rnand I don’t do it, is going to a supermarket and buying a huge bag of potato chipsrnand coming home and eating it but I don’t do it, so.

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Question: What would you choose as a lastrnmeal?

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MarkrnBittman:  Why do they choose -- because they wantrnsomething comfortable, they want something they're familiar with.  They all want bacon and eggs,rnright?  I mean I don’t -- that's myrnguess.  Everybody wants four friedrneggs in butter with unlimited supply of bacon and really, really great toast.  I would – am I being executed?  I have to get the scenario.  So assuming I'm being executed and Irnhave the – its not a last meal, like I don’t want to think about cancer lastrnmeals, I want to think about execution last meals.  I would call – I'm privileged I can do this -- I would callrnmy friend Jean-Georges Vongerichten and tell him I want to cook for me until Irntell him to stop.  That would be myrnlast meal.  But I do like the fourrnor six eggs cooked in a lot of butter with bacon and really good toast.  I like that, too.

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Question: rnWhat do you think of New York's proposal to ban salt in restaurants?

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Mark Bittman: rnI think it's moronic.  Irnthink that the problem with salt, to the extent that there is a problem withrnsalt, and this is not really, really clear, but to the extent there is arnproblem with salt, it's the salt in processed foods.  People who don’t eat a lot of processed foods don’t havernproblems with salt.  People who addrntheir own salt to food have no problems with salt.  Chefs who make their own – chefs in restaurants who cookrnfrom scratch and add salt to their taste or to the perceive tastes of theirrndiners are not adding criminal amounts of salt.  If you want to limit the amount of salt that McDonalds putsrnin its processed foods, that's great. rnI'd like to limit the amount of food they can sell period.  It's not really a salt problem, it's anrnoverall food problem.

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Question: Why are proposals to tax sugary sodasrnimportant?

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MarkrnBittman:  Well, I think it is happening, which isrnreally amazing.  The mayor ofrnPhiladelphia just proposed a very – the proponents of a soda tax or generallyrnproposing a penny per ounce as an excise tax, which means 12 ounce can of sodarnmight cost a $1.12 instead of $1.00 and a 24-pack case of soda might cost --rnmight double in price from a sale price of $2.99 or $3.99.  That's really incredible.  The guy in Philadelphia, I think hisrnname is Nutter, but hey it's his name. rnThe guy in Philadelphia is proposing two cents per ounce, which isrnreally quite amazing because it means a $1.00 can of soda would cost a $1.25.  A 32 ounce bottle of soda that was arn$1.00 would cost a $1.64 and so on.

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So I think it isrnhappening.  Why is itrnimportant?  Soda is the leadingrnsource of calories for Americans. rnAmericans get seven percent of their calories from soda, which is morernthan they get from any other single food. rnAnd let's think about this, it's non-nutritive.  That is to say no benefitrnwhatsoever.  None.  Like it's not harmless, it's negative.  Secondly, it's a leading cause ofrnobesity in the United States.  Irnmean, if obesity is a problem, you have to look at where the calories are comingrnfrom.  If soda is the number onernsource of calories in the United States and it's not a beneficial source ofrncalories, it's something people can do without. 

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So if you'rernobese and you're looking for ways to help people figure out what they can dornwithout, soda is a very good start. rnSo I think the tax is a very smart thing.  There is some research that shows that taxing junk food,rnwhich soda is a junk food, taxing junk food is more likely to help people eatrnwell than subsidizing healthy food. rnThe irony is that if you subsidize healthy food people will take thernmoney they're saving and buy junk food, which is sad but true.

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I think the sodarntax makes sense.  I think it'srnhappening.  I think it's going tornhappen this year and next year.  Irnthink it is going to be a swell of soda taxes and I think once the greedy staternlegislatures realize they can make money on this thing it's going to have evenrnmore momentum.

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Question: Describe your kitchen.

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Mark Bittman:  I moved this year and I moved from arnkitchen that was six by seven to a kitchen that was about eight by eight.  So its an eight by eight?  Maybe it's seven by seven; it'srn50-something square feet.  It hasrncounters on two sides.  It has arnrefrigerator on a third side.  Itrnhas drawers on a fourth side and it has two doors.  It has a sink and a dishwasher and a stove and it has maybernsix feet of counter space and nothing is fancy but it's, for me, nearlyrnperfect.  I mean I wish I could fitrnmore – like I wish I could fit a table in it and I wish I could fit more peoplernin it to hang out with while I was cooking but it's pretty great.  It's really nice but there's nothingrnunusual or remarkable about it.

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Question: What inspires you to create a newrnrecipe?

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MarkrnBittman: The way thatrnrecipes happen for me is shopping. rnIt all starts with shopping. rnSo I will go -- I got to Chinatown a lot.  I go to decent supermarkets.  I go to green markets, and I try to buy everything thatrnlooks good that I think I can cook in the next X days.  I mean am I cooking at home for thernnext four days?  Because to be homernfor four days in a row is a lot. 

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I'll buy fourrndays of food but I'll buy a lot and then I will go home and I will cook what Irnbought and almost always, a.) because I have like no patients with cooking fromrnrecipes, b.) because I'm not that methodical, c.) because I have a bad memoryrnand always think I'm making things up. rnI can't even duplicate my own recipes.  What happens is there's this house full of food and I startrncooking and usually interesting things happen.  I don’t – brilliant things don’t happen, but interestingrnthings happen, interestingly enough to write about evidently, since people readrnthis stuff.

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Question: You often suggest substituting onerningredient for another. Doesn't that change the recipe?

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MarkrnBittman:Well, I don’t really care.  If you substitute one -- if you werernmaking pasta with broccoli and you don’t have broccoli, you want to make pastarnwith cauliflower, everything about that is the same: the cooking time, therntechnique, just about everything about it is the same, assuming you know how torntrim broccoli and trim cauliflower. rnIs it a different recipe? rnYou might say it's a different recipe, but almost everything about it isrnthe same and so what if it's a different recipe, it's still good.  I mean, I like to say you can varyrnthings as much as you want to but you have to remember that you can't make arnroast chicken without chicken.

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Question: Whom do you most enjoy cooking for?

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MarkrnBittman:  It’s a toss up.  My wife is the greatest diningrncompanion and a total joy to cook for and she's a good eater and we really havernfun together, but I have to say that my kids, who grew up eating my food andrncan call and say I'm coming over, could you make something Asian or I'm comingrnover I need this pasta dish or I'm coming over and could you just – could wernhave one of those – it's really nice and if there are people who don’t like torneat I don’t want to cook for them. rn

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I don’t want tornhave to convince anybody that what I'm making is good.  I know it's good.  I usually enjoy it.  If someone enjoys eating, they'll enjoyrneating the stuff I cook.  If theyrndon’t, something is wrong somewhere. rnThere's not – Julia Child used to say, "The great thing aboutrncooking is you get to eat your mistakes."

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The thing isrnthat if you take care in cooking and if you know what you're doing, even arnlittle bit, unless you burn something there are very few things that wind up sornbad that you can't enjoy them. rnVery few.  So I mean I'mrnlucky enough to have been doing this long enough and writing about it andrnlearning from other people and thinking about it so that generally speaking thernstuff I do is pretty good and the people I cook for tend to enjoy it.  But I said before it's not brilliant,rnit's not earth shattering it's just good food.

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Question: What was it like hanging out withrnGwyneth Paltrow and Mario Batali in Spain?

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MarkrnBittman:  Well, Mario and I have known each otherrnprobably ten years and we've gotten increasingly busy, so we don’t see eachrnother that much.  So it was reallyrna treat to hang out so much and I know from my – the people who – I was goingrnto say my fans, which I guess is right, but anyway.  I know from people who've watched "Spain on the RoadrnAgain" and my other TV shows that everybody thinks that TV is the most funrnthing in the world and everybody's completely jealous of, "Oh, well yourngot to hang out with Mario and Gwyneth and this who's that beautiful woman andrnthe food in Spain must be so amazing."

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Thernfact is television is a tremendous amount of work.  And for every minute on screen there is an hour ofrnwork.  So for every 60 minutes onrnscreen, there's a week of work and it really is like that.  So we did a huge amount of driving andrnthere's a lot of setup time and not exactly rehearsal but figuring out whatrnwe're going to do.  So none of thatrnwas my favorite part.

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My favorite partrnwas nighttime when everything was done and we all got drunk together.  So that was really great and Mario, ofrncourse, can drink anyone under the table. rnI think he'll admit to this, maybe it's not an admission, I think he'llrnbe proud of this.  Whereas I can'trndrink anyone under the table plus I go to bed earlier than anybody else.  I go to bed earlier than anybody.

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So we'd finishrnthe shoot, we'd have a bite to eat, we'd have a fair amount of wine.  It would be 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, I'd gornto bed.  Mario would be up untilrnfour in the morning.  Everyone elsernwas waking up with black eyes and broken shoulders, he was always in greatrnshape.  So that was sort of what itrnwas like.

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Question: If you could cook for anyone, livingrnor not, whom would you serve?

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MarkrnBittman:  So I could say I would cook for AdolphrnHitler and serve him poison.  Irncould say that.  I could say quiternsincerely -- see I don’t think you could influence people really, I mean I –rnthe obvious answer, an obvious answer is well, I would cook for President Obamarnand set him straight on a number of issues but he's already got a lot of peoplernsetting him straight. 

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I think thernpeople I'd most like to cook for would be my maternal grandparents, who I lovedrnvery much and have been dead a long time and who I think, in some ways, werernresponsible a lot for my personality and a lot for the way I handle myself andrnalso for my love of food and saying that makes me think I should go cook for myrnparents more often than I do. rnThey're alive, fortunately, so I'm going to go and [do that]...

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