As a young boy growing up in New York City, we would spend our summers on the South Fork of Long Island. My dad would take me down to the beach at low tide. We would walk a mile down to the jetties, and he would lower me by my ankles into the crevices between the massive boulders to grab at huge ropes of mussels.

The jambalaya of the American South owes a lot to the cuisines of the islands and western Africa, and it's my favorite of this type of one-pot cookery.

My mom was as brilliant a cook as my dad is.

Andrew Zimmern Quotes