{"id":343023,"date":"2025-10-30T11:37:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T11:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/343023\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T11:37:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T11:37:16","slug":"ted-allen-chicago-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/343023\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Allen \u2013 Chicago Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u25a0 My chef friend Marc Murphy can feed 50 people<\/strong> at his house by himself without stressing at all. I do not have that gene. I\u2019m not a professional chef. I did not go to culinary school. I\u2019ve worked in restaurants but not real restaurants. And I prefer not to have people staring at me while I cook. In fact, I ordered my last group of guests out of the kitchen.<\/p>\n

\u25a0 You don\u2019t need a $1,000 knife<\/strong>, but you definitely need a good knife. And the most important knife for me is an eight-inch chef\u2019s knife. You have to keep it sharp. It\u2019s actually more dangerous to have a dull knife, because it\u2019s more likely to slip and cut your fingers. You can get a Chicago Cutlery chef\u2019s knife for probably 30 bucks. That\u2019s what I have. Sturdy, full-tang, high-carbon steel. Actually, maybe I\u2019ll sharpen it while we talk.<\/p>\n

\u25a0 Chicago<\/strong> magazine was my first job that paid.<\/strong> I edited the front section. Even today, on Chopped, I get a script that\u2019s about 18 pages and I edit the hell out of it. I can\u2019t help it. I remove redundancies. I remove anything that has me saying things like, \u201cWell, you\u2019re a plucky fellow.\u201d I get rid of adverbs because they are the leeches that suck the blood from literature. I\u2019m just lucky my producers appreciate that.<\/p>\n

\u25a0 Getting famous is a fascinating thing.<\/strong> I was 37 when Queer Eye for the Straight Guy happened. We call ourselves cable-ebrities. It\u2019s a certain level of fame that is kind of helpful: People are nice to me, but I can walk around cities. I remember the first time I got recognized. It was at a flea market on Manhattan\u2019s Upper West Side, and I didn\u2019t know what to do because I was so shocked and embarrassed. So I said, \u201cYeah, I get that a lot.\u201d I realize now that if you\u2019re lucky enough to have somebody come up and say they love your show, the appropriate reaction is \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u25a0 My husband, Barry, and I met when I was 28, and he was 24.<\/strong> But for the first season of Queer Eye, I was in New York alone because we needed to see if it was going to go anywhere. That was hard. Pro tip: When you have a long separation from someone you love, watch the same show or movie at the same time and call each other during the commercials. There\u2019s something about it that kind of works.<\/p>\n

\u25a0 I eat potato chips every day.<\/strong> It\u2019s a weakness. Lay\u2019s sour cream and onion, generally.<\/p>\n

\u25a0 Music is my favorite art form.<\/strong> I love the excitement of waiting for the curtain to go up and rocking out. I like to go to concerts alone. No hassle. I go early because I want a good seat. And I want a T-shirt. Massive geek.<\/p>\n

\u25a0 You know how tricky it is to get the first brownie out of the pan?<\/strong> Get a fish spatula. It\u2019s a steel slotted spatula that\u2019s a little flexible, and usually the tip of it is at an angle. You slide it under that brownie and you can get it out clean. I love that tool.<\/p>\n

\u25a0 I have every piece of Chopped swag that has ever been made.<\/strong> It\u2019s an immaculate collection\u2009\u2014\u2009mostly T-shirts and hoodies. But I can\u2019t ever wear any of it, because I\u2019d look like a schmuck. If the Smithsonian is interested, I\u2019d be happy to donate it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u25a0 My chef friend Marc Murphy can feed 50 people at his house by himself without stressing at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":343024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[168957,168956,960,168961,168962,168959,5386,1818,168964,5249,168960,405,168963,28638,168958,36246],"class_list":{"0":"post-343023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-back-room","9":"tag-backroom","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-cutlery","12":"tag-chicago-magazine","13":"tag-chopped","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-illinois","16":"tag-lays","17":"tag-manhattan","18":"tag-marc-murphy","19":"tag-new-york","20":"tag-queer-eye-for-the-straight-guy","21":"tag-smithsonian","22":"tag-ted-allen","23":"tag-upper-west-side"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115462920343133192","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}