Tom Colicchio Reveals His Worst Cooking Accident

Tom Colicchio has made his name perfecting his restaurants—and judging the dishes of others on Top Chef and Best New Restaurant—but it turns out there was a time when he was less than perfect.

The foodie opened up about some of his most vivid childhood cooking memories and one in particular stands out: the time he ruined his grandmother's dessert.

"I would bake a lot with my grandmother," he tells Mother Jones. "I grew up in a four-family home in New Jersey. There were two homes on the plot and my grandparents lived in the other building. So I made this blueberry pie and I had to walk it a couple hundred yards to the side house. We're on the second floor, and my grandmother insisted that I put it in a brown paper bag and hold it straight. I kept saying, 'Oh, it'll be okay.' I run home, upstairs. I take it out, big moment, and the blueberries all flew out of the pie!"

He's come a long way since then—and as a father these days, he says he's trying to get his children interested in food, too.

"I find that the trick to get them to eat is to bring them shopping," he says. "I started gardening this year, and they are so interested in watching stuff grow."

Tom adds that patience is important when it comes to inspiring his children's culinary aspirations. "They're so focused on immediate response of hitting a button and something happens," he adds. "My older son really loves food and really cares about it. He isn't into policy yet, but we had a food policy booth set up at Lollapalooza, and he manned it this year because I couldn't get there. I had to entice him with lots of free music."

[Source: Mother Jones]