Gail Simmons is a proud foodie. She puts her expertise to practice on Bravo's Emmy-nominated, reality series "Top Chef" where she critiques up and coming chefs who want to make it in the culinary world. You can also see her work her judging magic on "Top Chef: Just Desserts" and "Top Chef Masters." Simmons admits to living the dream where she gets to both eat and judge while writing for "Food & Wine Magazine." Simmons talked to LIVE OC about food, her career and what it’s like to judge good grub for a living.
LIVE OC: Why did you decide to be part of the culinary world? What is it about food that fascinated you to get started in this field?
GAIL SIMMONS: I guess originally way back when I first had an inkling that I wanted to be in the food world was when I was in college. My mother actually ran a cooking school out of her home and wrote a food column in the newspaper. Growing up, there was always amazing food around me at all times; she was an amazing cook and was always throwing dinner parties. We traveled a lot as children. My father is from South Africa so travel was a big part of our life. Our parents felt strongly about exposing us to a lot of great food and travel. They were always up for adventures and they were always taking us along. So that kind of was innate in me from a very young age.
And when I was in college, left to my own resources and not a lot of money, I started cooking a lot and actually started writing restaurant reviews for my college paper, but never really realized that was a job. When I graduated, I wanted to write—I always loved writing. I went to work as an intern at a magazine and it was at the magazine when I started following the food editor around, and keep in mind this was long before there was Top Chef, long before there were massive food shows and the culinary world is as big as it is now, I found myself drawn to the food editor because I loved eating and I loved the world of restaurants and the entire experience. I kind of realized there was this whole universe of the restaurant world I wanted to be a part of and it’s delicious. Why not?
LIVE OC: What is the greatest thing about being on Top Chef and what is the most difficult?
Gail Simmons: The best thing would be, well everything is pretty great. I say this without an ounce of sarcasm, I really believe I have the best job on television. I get to eat great food, hang out with people I like, and travel around the country, so it’s pretty dreamy and the food is pretty delicious and impressive. I also get to meet all of these extraordinary chefs both young up and comers and the masters on the show as our guest judges and also the ones on our Top Chef Masters series. So it’s been pretty inspiring all around.
If I had to complain about anything I would say that the most difficult part is, because we travel so much for the show, I have to be away from home and the people that I love, so that can be difficult. Luckily enough we all really like each other and it’s been the same crew pretty much since the first day. It’s like traveling with this giant extended family. I like to joke that Padma and Tom are my college roommates. We’re sort of this funny little roommate group. There are certain times of the year where I see Padma and Tom more than my husband, so we know every secret about each other. There’s nothing we can hold back from each other at this point, but we’re lucky because we really enjoy hanging out.
LIVE OC: What are some of your favorite TV cooking shows past or present?
Gail Simmons: Good question let’s see. I’ve always loved watching Jacques Pepin on PBS. I’ve always loved watching him on Sunday mornings or weekend mornings. He’s such a master and he’s so accomplished and, not only has he had such an amazing career, in his late 70s’ he’s still such an amazing teacher. He’s never about the ego or grandstanding—he’s really just a teacher in the true sense of the word. I love that about him. I also love the show with his daughter Claudine because I cook with my mom so much, so I’ve always identified with this family thing because they’re always joking with each other and teasing each other but also making really great food with each other.
Present shows that I love..Anthony Bourdain. Okay, there are two food shows that are on my DVR that are not Top Chef shows: one is “No Reservations” and the other is “Avec Eric Show on PBS.” It is no coincidence that Eric and Anthony are best friends. It’s funny because on the surface they’re total opposites you know Anthony is this kind of crass, loud-mouth, no BS, adventurer, traveling the world and eating all kinds of ridiculously outlandish things where Eric is very put together, buttoned-up, four-star chef who is impeccable in his chef life at all times. But actually they’re best friends and they have two shows that reflect them each. You know Anthony’s is very down and dirty and Eric’s is beautifully designed and produced, but they’re both my favorite food programs that aren’t on Bravo.
LIVE OC: Who are some of your role models in the culinary world?
Gail Simmons: Certainly both of them. I’ve had the privilege of working with both of them on Top Chef. They’ve both been supporters of Top Chef from the first and second season. Eric was my co-judge on the past season of Top Chef and Anthony will be my co-judge on the upcoming season. They’ve both been great mentors to me and they’ve both taken time out of their lives to spend with me and advise me. We’ve traveled a bit all together. They’re the real deal in very different ways. In terms of other mentors, I’ve had three bosses in my life that I think really changed my life and made me who I am: Jeffrey Steingarten, a food critic for Vogue and he’s been writing for them for probably about 25 years if not more 35?, I worked for him for two years as an assistant and he really taught me everything I know about food. I went to culinary schools and worked in kitchens but going to work for him really taught me to get my hands dirty and understand the process of writing about food and quote “talking” about food, the language, the research, to understand the process.
After I worked for him I worked for Daniel Blue, who is a master , truly the best chef in the country if not the world and he is also an amazing businessman and I worked for him for three years. He really kind of opened his home to me and his business and let me follow him around wherever he went for three years. He is so good and such a smart and charming person. Finally, the publisher Christina Grdovic and editor-in-chief Dana Cowin for “Food and Wine Magazine.” You know women in the food world sadly are still pretty few and far between in a lot of ways and the two of them are trailblazers. They’ve been at the magazine for 15 years just about and they just are fearless leaders— they’re so smart at what they do. They’re the first—they get their first. They’re both ahead of their time and are visionaries and I love spending time, traveling, and talking with them for so many years.
LIVE OC: You’re hosting Top Chef Desserts now. What’s your favorite dessert?
Gail Simmons: Ever? That’s like choosing children! It’s similar how I feel about restaurants. I’m so lucky that there are so many restaurants in New York and I can never pick my favorite one. Just like restaurants, I can never pick one dessert— it depends on my mood. I have a dessert for when I feel down, a dessert when I’m feeling happy, a dessert I go to when I want chocolate, a dessert I go to when I want fruit. You know it depends. If I want to share, I have a dessert I will choose. It also depends on the season. I go through these phases. I’m just coming out of this pudding phase—you know just smoothe, creamy rich chocolate pudding, maple pudding, butterscotch pudding. Now I’m going into a fall pie phase, just because that’s the season and that’s what I’m in the mood to cook. Thanksgiving is coming up and the fruit in fall I think,lends itself so well to pies so you know apple pie, pear pie, fig, pumpkin, pecan pies, all that stuff is great.
LIVE OC: What has been your most memorable Top Chef Challenge meal?
Gail Simmons: Wow! There have been so many that it’s almost like they all blur into one but there have been a few. In general, I tend to have the strongest memories of the ones that really took the chefs out of their elements where they weren’t cooking in traditional kitchens at all. Where we forced them to cook out on the street or over a fire on the beach or you know out of a truck. So in really unusual situations that force them out of their comfort zone, so they aren’t thinking like a chef but as a real person. In every season we’ve been able to do that so that’s been really exciting. If I have to think of my favorite meal I’ve ever eaten on the show, I’d have to say the first season of Top Chef Masters, our finale meal Michael Chiarello, Hubert Keller, and Rick Bayless. It was like the Dream Team. It was like I felt this is “the die and go to heaven meal” and I’m a little worried because I had no rights to eating their food all together,at once, in such an amazing circumstance. It was so memorable.
LIVE OC: What is one important tip that you can give to amateur chefs?
Gail Simmons: I guess the one important tip I’d give is “that there’s no such thing as an overnight success.” I mean it applies in entertainment, but it applies nowhere better than in the kitchen. I mean you come out of school or come out of cooking for a year and you’re a chef I mean Tom will tell you it really takes a lifetime of study and hard work and there is no easy shortcut to it. To be a true chef, to be a leader of the kitchen, to be the one designing the menu, whose name is on the door and to have that recognition, to be what those people consider a great chef these days—you know, you just can’t take a shortcut. You need to learn, you need to find great mentors and study under them. You need to keep your mouth shut, your ears open, your palette ready, and just be willing to work and it’s only through that hard work, learning, and putting your own ego aside that you’ll be able to create a breadth of experience that you can then make your own and you gotta have the passion and the drive to stick with it, because the rewards are great if you’re willing to do the work required.
LIVE OC: You’re doing writing and special projects at Food and Wine Magazine. How is that going?
Gail Simmons: I was at Food and Wine long before I was on television and my position at Top Chef came out of Bravo and Food and Wine coming together to work on the first season of the show and I was chosen as a representative of the magazine. I never anticipated being on television. I always wanted to work in food publishing and magazines and in food media. My job here at Food and Wine has certainly changed over the years as my role on Top Chef has expanded and as the show has continued to thrive, so my job here is very different than it used to be. So I get the chance to do a little bit of writing and recipe work for them and you know just to be an ambassador for the magazine because Food and Wine has been celebrating chef talent and finding what’s new and next in the chef world for 30 plus years. So when Bravo came to Food and Wine to do the show it was this perfect fit and now we can do what we do on a greater scale for the national audience. It gives us this great reason to shout it from the hilltops more than ever that there’s this amazing world of food and chefs tgat everyone wants to be a part of and Food and Wine and Bravo have been able to- hand in hand- show the world that.
LIVE OC: You mentioned your Mom and growing up in food-centered household. Is there any recipe that your Mom passed down to you that you use today?
Gail Simmons: Oh there are several really. Classically, there’s all that stuff that I still make that I would never depart from—her chicken soup, her banana chocolate bread. She has this amazing plum tart that I love. And my father ,who is not a cook and can barely turn on a dishwasher, but there are a few things that he makes that are his speciality and I’m very proud to make them. He makes amazing pickles and he makes his own pickles. He also makes this amazing applesauce right around this time. I love it and I make it.
LIVE OC: What’s your favorite comfort food?
Gail Simmons: Anything with chocolate in it. Chocolate or carbohydrates. When you put those together I’d say chocolate bread pudding. Best of both worlds.
LIVE OC: Do you have a favorite place to eat in California?
Gail Simmons: I haven’t spent any time in Orange County sadly. But I have a really close friend who moved out there a year ago so I owe her a visit and I hear really great things. I don’t have experience beyond LA. Just a few years ago I would say I was not that interested in the LA food scene but I think over the past couple of years, it has just bloomed and I constantly have a list of like eight restaurants I want to go to every time I’m in town. Right now restaurants I’m really excited about in LA.. Animal, one of my favorite restaurants and I eat there every time I come to LA, even though that’s often. It’s just one of the most refreshing restaurants in a long time. I love Street. It’s just super cool. I love Gjelina in Venice.
LIVE OC: What is the one restaurant that everyone should eat at before they die?
Gail Simmons: I have to say two. In Spain, in the basque country outside of Rioja in Spain. It’s this amazing man who does everything over these custom made grills he’s built for himself. He’ll grill everything from caviar to ice cream and it’s just an extraordinary experience. It’s called Etxeberri. On the flip side is Hot Crescenters in Singapore.
LIVE OC: Where do you want to take your career in the next few years?
Gail Simmons: Wow, a big question but a good one. I try not to make a 10-year plan, I just want to stay in this position and continue to teach people how to eat better and be more adventurous.
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