Summer Grilling Special

When Parade.com asked Gia On The Move to share Food Network star Guy Fieri’s summer cooking secrets from his new cookbook Guy on Fire … our respective mouths watered!

The Mayor of Flavortown discussed the most common grilling mistakes, coping with critics, and how the death of his younger sister changed him. “Life goes by in a click,” Fieri says. “You gotta enjoy it in a massive way.”  Here are some exerpts:

On the biggest grilling mistakes people make:

“The most common problem is not cooking with enough fire or cooking over coals that haven’t established themselves. But using lighter fluid, I think, is the biggest mistake people make. It’s nasty and you don’t want it in your food.”

On what people should be cooking that they’re not:

“People are very phobic about fish. And if they do cook fish, they fry it, which kills all the flavor. Tuna is probably the most readily accessible, easy to work with, and best tasting.  So try searing some ahi. … If you’re feeling adventurous, grill up some marinated octopus. It’s so healthy.”

On getting skewered by a New York Times critic, who wondered if he had even eaten at his Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square:

“I’m not going to make everybody happy. And anybody who wants to hate is going to hate. You have to be confident in who you are and what you’re doing.”

On Bobby Moynihan’s impression of him on Saturday Night Live:

“I love it. Whenever he’s done it, he’s texted me the next day to ask how I liked it, and I always tell him he’s brilliant. But my goal is to go on SNL doing Bobby doing me, alongside Bobby doing me. Wouldn’t that be nuts?”

On the death of his sister, Morgan, in 2011:

“That she could get melanoma and die within a year—I’ve always been aware of the tenderness of existence, but it reminded me to live for today.”

On what his ideal future looks like to him:

“One of my favorite places in the world is Mexico, and I have a little piece of property down there. … The end game for me would be living on the beach. The days I want to cook, I’d open my restaurant, put a flag out in the sand, and cook whatever was fresh. I love to cook for people. It’s my honor, honestly. It’s what I have to give.”