Quotes

There is no right way to go on an edible journey. You can never tell what is going to be great, so you have to try everything. If you become doctrinaire about sticking to lowbrow foods or epicurean delights, your just being an extremist, and it won't do you any good.

I like being the people's champion when it comes to dining.

If you do a quantity challenge, the problem you'd face would be a starchy challenge. If it has a lot of potatoes, a lot of bread or fried elements, that's difficult. With heat challenges, challenges that use the whole pepper are much, much easier than ones that use pepper extract. That's concentrated, and also devoid of flavour. It's just heat.

There's no way that I could have known about a 72-oz. steak challenge in Amarillo unless thousands upon thousands of locals and travellers alike had attempted it. I guess if 'Man V Food' is me paying homage to these legends, then I suppose 'Man V Food Nation' is the legacy.

Now you can get artisanal everything - pickles, coffees, house-cured meats, mustard. The pendulum has swung back to this kind of food, and it gives me the greatest hope for the future, especially because we're living in a time with issues like polluted Gulf Coast seafood and food labeled organic that may not really be organic.

These $40 burgers with foie gras and truffles and all of that flies in the face of one of the most proletarian foods around. It's overpriced, overdone and just not worth it.

I love that you can pick up your phone at a hotel and have something to eat in your bed. I love home, but there are amenities at a hotel that you simply don't have at home.

In L.A., I love the L'Ermitage in Beverly Hills. Also, the Beverly Wilshire, where they make great huevos rancheros. I also love Shutters on the Beach, where I walk around everywhere in a bathrobe.

The Travel Channel had success with their 'Food Paradise' series, '10 Best Places to Pig Out' and those types of specials, so they knew there was a market for comfort food and wanted to develop a show around it.

My most memorable food challenge was probably the Big Texan in Amarillo. All the big executives called me because it was such an iconic challenge, and a victory in that would be a legitimizing device for myself as much as for the show.

It's weird because people think the biggest guys are the biggest eaters, but fat doesn't expand as much as muscle, so you want someone with a big frame who can expand.

Drugs ruin peoples lives, break up families and have disastrous effects on our communities.

Since an early age I was taught to be very politically aware and knew from childhood that the process was something I wanted to contribute towards if I could.

I think people forget that to be on the A list you first had to go through the original graded Parliamentary Selection Board. I did that and then like everyone else had the further interviews to get onto the A list.

I think a good MP is someone who cares for their community and becomes their champion, which is why I will make my home in any seat I am lucky enough to be selected for. Looks play no part in the equation, what matters is your ideas and connecting them to the electorate.

There is a real diversity of talent and background on the A list so as to better reflect our society in all walks. There are people who have been candidates before, Councillors, Doctors, business leaders, charity campaigners.

The duty of responsibility placed on any MP is one of the greatest honours that can be bestowed and I for one don't believe the Conservative Party would abuse that trust by selecting someone who did not have the goods to do the job, just for the sake of media coverage.

I think all of the parties still have some way to go to better utilise IT in campaigns.

The evidence that things are changing fast can be seen in the dramatic increase in the influence of blogging. We should be collecting emails as we used to collect telephone numbers and using them to better communicate our message to key voters.

After believing in promises made and never fulfilled by Labour, people have become increasingly disenchanted with the process assuming that all politicians will say anything to gain power, and then never follow through.

With regard to the youth vote we should encourage them to partake in the process, making more use of our education system to show the role Government plays in their lives, but also utilise the youth media they relate to to better connect them to our message.

I have no great urge to be minister of this or minister of that, but instead would feel incredible blessed to have the opportunity to be a champion for a constituency and fight for their cause.

For me it's more important to look at each constituency individually and find a community I feel I can serve to the best of my abilities, and where I feel I can make a real difference, and further their cause.

I think church and state should remain entirely separate at all costs, and that the decision of religious marriage should be of each faith to debate and decide free of political influence.

However saying that I totally support the concept of civil partnerships in the eyes of the law, and think it a disgrace that same sex couples have had to wait so long for legal rights, protection and recognition.