Kidsday cooks with the Neelys
Photo credit: Newsday Photo / Pat Mullooly | Food Network's Pat and Gina Neely with Kidsday reporters Whitney Harrison, Samayah Toussaint and Amia Chase on their kitchen set.
We met with celebrity chefs Pat and Gina Neely at a TV studio in Manhattan recently. Their Food Network show is "Down Home With the Neelys." After watching them film their TV segments, we made some delicious desserts and asked a few questions.
Have you ever forgotten a step in a recipe and had to start all over? Gina: Sometimes you do, but you can add it in at a later time. If you forget it, it is OK, sometimes you can think of another way to do it and add a secret ingredient. Like my brownie crunch? Everybody makes brownies just adding nuts to it. My daughter told me, "Mama everybody adds nuts." She started thinking about that cookie wafer with marshmallow and that created a whole new recipe.
How does it feel working with your husband or wife? Pat: Wonderful, it feels great. Gina: That is a great question. It feels good it is like working with my best friend. It makes it easy.
What other thing do you enjoy doing besides cooking? Gina: I love to go to the movies. Shelby and I love to go all the time. I like to read and I love to shop. No matter how tired I am, if you say shop I get a burst of energy. Pat: I love to play golf. I love cooking, it is like a hobby to me, it is not a chore. I love spending time with my daughters and spending time with Gina.
Who cleans the dishes? Gina: We both do. We can both clean as we go; depends on what you are cooking. When something is in the oven, you can go ahead and do the dishes. Pat: Sometimes we wait until after we are finished eating and we will stack them up for another 15 or 20 minutes and then do the dishes and wipe the counters and everything. It really gives your stomach time to digest it.
Who inspired you to become a cook? Gina: I would say my great great grandmother; she always cooked. Pat: My mother. My mother had five boys. There were six of us, five boys and one girl and we didn't have a lot of money and we couldn't afford to go out and eat. My mother would cook every evening. I would come home and there would be several big pots on the stove and we would watch her cook, and then she would work too. We started feeling sorry for mom so me and my brothers would come home and help her with the cooking. That is when I started.
Tell us one thing you despise about cooking? Gina: Probably where it goes. If I could just stay a skinny size and eat all I want, but for some reason it always ends up in places where it shouldn't. I love to eat, so it is a losing battle. Pat: I hate the temperature. If I cook at home and it gets too hot or we have barbecue restaurants and in the summertime I hate the heat. Otherwise, I like making the dishes. Sometimes I hate to clean the kitchen up, too.
Who is the better cook? Pat: I am! [laughter] Gina: We both are. Pat: We both are great in our own areas. When we are at home, I will do a lot of the grilling in the backyard. Miss Gina is inside making the potato salad, coleslaw and making greens. I could never do what she does. I could never make collard greens as good as she does. Gina: He is better at stews and soups, because he grew up with them. Everybody has something different that they can bring. That is what makes it nice when we cook together.
What is the biggest mistake you have made? Gina: Of course, we have made them! It was when I made collard greens the first time. I lived in California and they turned all crunchy because I cooked them too long. So trying it over and over eventually you will get it just how you like it. I make the best collard greens in Tennessee. Pat: One of my biggest mistakes -- I was grilling in the backyard and I wasn't paying attention and I walked away from the grill and flames were shooting out of the side of it. All of the chicken and meat was as dark as those Oreo cookies. We had people coming over so I had to go to my restaurant and get some more meat and bring it back and it was already done. When you are grillin' you really have to watch the grill.
What is your favorite dish to make? Pat: I love to grill steak and shrimp and chicken... anything I can put on that grill. I could cook a whole dinner on the grill. Gina: My favorite dish is my collard greens.
If there is any celebrity you could cook for who would it be and why? Pat : Halle Berry; just kidding. Paula Deen or Oprah Winfrey. You know why Oprah, because she is from Mississippi and that is not far from Tennessee I think she would be able to relate to our southern dishes. Gina: Paula Deen. We like a lot of the same things. I would like to see where she would go with something.
Spicy or barbecue? Gina: I always like a little kick! You gotta add a little spice to it. Pat: It depends. I love barbecue, but a lot of my dishes have spice to them. If I eat Gina's greens, I like some hot sauce on it. It depends on what it is.
comments