I'm a big fan of Deb Perelman as a person, blogger and chef, so when she championed a cookbook called Secrets of the Best Chefs on a post about soup (and we all know this winter has been all about the soup), I made sure to place it on my Christmas list. Sure enough, Santa gave me the book and I've been poring through it--slowly--ever since I've gotten it. I actually haven't even gotten around to trying anything from it yet because I've been so busy reading Adam Roberts' charming tales of being a mere mortal learning from the best, hoping I glean something from his insights before I pull out a pan. Roberts, in addition to penning Secrets of Best Chefs, runs the blog The Amateur Gourmet, is also the author of The Amateur Gourmet: How To Shop, Chop & Table-Hop Like A Pro (Almost) and has hosted shows for the Food Network and its website. You can learn a whole lot more about him here and follow him on Twitter here.

Every now and then I try to make something that just ends up a complete failure and I have a temper tantrum that involves me angrily throwing the food down the drain and maybe shedding a little tear about the waste of it all. Do you have any dishes that did that to you that you can recall?
Oh of course...my whole blog began with more failures than successes! Let's see: there was the time I tried to make fish in parchment paper, only I didn't seal the paper well enough, the fish came out raw and--here's the really dumb part--I threw it away because I thought it was ruined. (It wasn't ruined, dumb younger me, it just wasn't cooked yet: you could've still cooked it!) There've been pound cakes that threw up on me and inedible curries so bad, we had to go out for burritos. Disasters are my forte in the kitchen.

You were in law school when you began the blog and you credit it with saving you from becoming a lawyer. Taking the Sliding Doors approach, where do you think you'd be now, and what type of law would you be practicing (if you would be practicing law) if you'd quit the blog before it took off?
Well the other thing that I did when I started my blog in my 3^rd year of law school is that I wrote a play that I submitted to NYU's dramatic writing program and, lo and behold, I got in and went there to study playwriting for 2 years after getting my law degree. So in this Sliding Doors scenario, did I not do that either? Because that really paved the way for the rest of my life: it's where I met my future husband, scored my first book deal, etc. Ok, but I see where you're going with this question--what kind of lawyer would I be? A terrible one! I went for all the wrong reasons: to please my parents, an obsession with Judge Judy. Every area of law that I worked in was a bad fit--everything from toxic torts to Legal Aid--so I'm pretty sure, blog or no blog, the law thing would never have worked out.

In terms of ingredients or tools, what's a kitchen item you've been surprised to learn that at-home chefs can go cheap on?
I would say a knife. It's more important to have a cheaper chef's knife (let's say $50 as opposed to a $500 knife) that you sharpen all the time on a whetstone than one that's too precious to muck around with. Because my knife wasn't too pricey, I feel free to drag it across that surface until it's positively razor-like and then I attack my vegetables like a serial killer.

Who is your favorite person or people to eat with and why?
Well I love to cook for my partner/boyfriend/fiancé/husband-figure Craig because he's such an enthusiastic eater and "ooohs" and "ahhhs" when he likes something. (I'm on a bit of a health kick lately, so tonight's cauliflower and chickpea curry on brown rice didn't really have him swooning.) At restaurants he's a great date because he gets excited about trying something novel--he was my companion the time I was lucky enough to go to El Bulli before it closed. You can watch videos of his reactions to the crazy dishes we ate in that post.

How has your approach to the blog, how you execute it and your relationship to it evolved since you began it?
It's always changing. For example, last year, at exactly this time, I decided I was going to tackle my blog as a full-time job and try to update several times a day to see how it would affect my traffic. Well my traffic surged but my enjoyment of blogging plummeted. This year it's the complete reversal: I'm stepping back a bit, overwhelmed by the glut of content online--all the Tweets and Instagrams and Facebook posts and blog posts and e-mails, it's just too much--so I'm only blogging when I have something significant to say or share. We'll see how long that lasts.

What's a tool you have in your kitchen, expensive or not, of which you've recently thought, "I really love this thing"?
A bench scraper. Not for bench scraping but for lifting things into a pot. For example, I lifted the cauliflower florets off the cutting board with the bench scraper when I was making my cauliflower curry. It's a great tool.

A couple of friends are coming over for a casual dinner on a Friday night and you're not going to blog about it or write about it at all (so it's off the record): what will you probably serve?
Aggressively garlicky Caesar salad, some kind of pasta dish (maybe Cavatappi with Sun-Dried Tomatoes) and brownie sundaes. Or sub our roast chicken for the pasta dish and you have my standard, go-to dinner party menu.

Are you picky at all? Aside from the spirit of adventure and politeness, what foods don't you like?
Not picky in the slightest, and I don't think you'll meet many food writers who are. Being a food writer is all about being open: to new experiences, to new tastes. That said, I hate beef jerky. Keep it away from me, I won't touch the stuff.

What did you eat yesterday?
Yesterday we were leaving Palm Springs, so in the morning we went to this place Cheeky's, famous for its breakfasts (we'd been there before) and I ordered the Huevos Rancheros which I was really excited about. Only it turned out to be two large deep-fried tortillas, topped with fried eggs and smothered in this red sauce that wasn't really what I was expecting. Still, it was good. Then last night, having just arrived back in L.A., I didn't feel like cooking so we went to the most charming Silverlake restaurant, Speranza, which is a total gem. They serve Italian food the way real Italians do: with a very spare touch that really lets the ingredients shine. So our endive salad with walnuts and Gorgonzola had barely a whisper of olive oil as a dressing and that was it. And my rigatoni with Bolognese sauce was textbook perfect. Pasta, by the way, is my favorite food. I should've mentioned that sooner.

I read this question in an interview with you from several years ago and would be interested in your answer now versus then, but what do you want to learn to do better?
Pie dough. And I've learned it and learned it and learned it from chefs, pastry chefs, relatives, pie-experts. But I've never gotten the knack for it so I'd really like to get it down at some point.

 How does it feel to be the 376th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
Terrific! Thanks for having me.