My first memory in life is grilling my thumb to the griddle in our restaurant on Cape Cod.

My mom, who's been in the restaurant business for 40 years, is the number-one influence in my life. But I look up to a lot of people in the industry. Tops on my list is Mario Batali. My mom and Mario taught me the same lesson: Food is love.

You can have a wonderful, much better quality of life than you think. You really do think you lead a rich life if you do something as simple as making dinner for yourself. You don't have to be left out of anything. Maybe you can't stay in the five-star suite, maybe you can just sit in the cocktail lounge and look at the beautiful view, but you can still go there.

I do know what my first meal in the next world would be... Spaghetti Aglio e Olio, heavy on everything.

EVOO is extra-virgin olive oil. I first coined 'EVOO' on my cooking show because saying 'extra virgin olive oil' over and over was wordy, and I'm an impatient girl - that's why I make 30-minute meals!

I do 280 episodes of TV a year, write 15 recipes for the magazine, and publish an annual book. With all of that, we try to get one weekend a month with Isaboo at our home in the Adirondacks to relax and recharge.