Curtis Stone on family, fame and cooking hacks

Stone is our homegrown celebrity chef who plates up Michelin star magic all over the world.

And yet he still finds time to help us at home with a range of tasty cooking tips and hacks.

When he's not running around, Sydney's surprising fans at Coles,

like he did this morning on Sunrise.

Curtis is also raising some serious talent.

Andres own roof alongside his wife, Lindsay Curtis, is he with us?

Hello. How you doing?

He's sticking around our few big shopping spree this morning.

That was so fun. It was crazy, but it was fun.

Well, some of the Aussie things you love to do when you come home.

Because LA is your base.

It is, but I spend a bunch of time in Sydney and my family are all down in Melbourne.

So I'm down there a lot as well.

I love being home. I love hitting the beaches.

You know, we've got the best beaches in the world.

The food here is fantastic.

Aussie's have the best sense of humor of anywhere that I've been.

So yeah, I love being here.

How's the pressure with what you do with the restaurants all over the world

and just keeping that standard up?

Yeah, look, it's one of those things that you set a standard for yourself in restaurants.

And then you're accountable to them every single day.

You know, and you can't be in every spot every moment of the day.

So you've got to have an incredible team.

You've got to empower them and you've got to make sure that you work really closely together.

But I love it. I still wake up every morning and excited to do what I do.

So I think when you've got that gift of love on what you do,

it's actually quite easy. Yeah, we saw you at Coles this morning.

It's sort of shopping.

But you've been with them for ages now. What?

17 years. Yeah, incredible.

So what do you love most about this job?

Look, I think as a chef, you love cooking for people

and you love, you know, having people taste your food.

And the footprint I get with Coles is I get to sit down with a board

and talk to them about how we source ingredients,

where they come from on a huge advocate for Aussie grown.

I love supporting Aussie farmers and making sure that we have as much.

Coles are 97% there about of what they sell is grown here in Australia.

And I'm super proud of that back. It's fabulous.

And, you know, so and then I get to develop recipes for them

and home cooks all over the country get to try and say, yeah, it's a fun job.

You've cooked for plenty of celebs over the years.

Yeah, heaps, right.

Is there one that's really surprised you

because they actually know what they're doing?

Oh, you know what? I cooked recently with Terry Hatcher

and she was on a show that I was hosting

and she's a really good cook.

And I was like, hey, you're amazing.

She's like, actually, after desperate housewives,

I enrolled in culinary school.

And I'm like, wow.

And she became a chef.

Like, she went all the way through the course.

And she's, yes, I don't, that blew me away.

But look, I've been lucky enough to cook with celebs

all over the joint.

So, and lots of them are good and lots of them are terrible.

And they're both fun.

Who's terrible at his worst?

Yeah.

Well, I, the, geez, who did I cook with?

I cooked with Dalton Goodrum.

Just a lot of my last trip back here.

She's a terrible cook.

But, you know, she heard me certain.

She talks about that freely.

And I love you, Dalton.

But you don't know where the sink is in your home.

And that's all right.

You know, I can't cook but can sing.

Can sing.

We can't do everything, right?

How's Dalton going?

This is your oldest son.

Talk about Can sing.

My bossy.

Yes, he's doing good.

He's going to be like a bit of a movie star.

I tell you what, he's just open to anything, honey.

And he's a talented kid.

He's a musician.

He's in a band and he got this phone call about Camp Rock.

And they asked him to do it.

And that premieres later this year.

So he's, he's dived in and I'm kind of like,

mate, you don't want to be an actor, do you?

You've got to be a chef and work with me.

But no, he's, he's finding his way in the music business.

He's in a studio every night after school.

He absolutely loves it.

So I'm happy for him.

But he's got Mum's genes.

They're two fabulous actress in Lindsay.

Yep, and her genes.

She, they fit the same genes right now, which is cool.

But they are, yeah, she, I mean, she can sing.

The thing most people don't know about Lindsay, she's,

yeah, she's a summer writer and she's got the voice of an angel.

And, and you know, I attribute what he's got in music

in some ways to her because she's sung to them every night

when they're going to sleep and she's a beautiful mum.

And, and he's turned into this incredible little

vocalist as well as a guitarist.

I'm just got the sad vision of my head.

You're in the kitchen on your own at home, peeling carrots.

While everyone's in the other room singing songs and dancing.

And I couldn't be more tone deaf.

If I whistle, my mum's like, yeah, I'm dead.

I'm like, how can you have a key in whistling?

It's just whizz, I'm just being happy.

But you know, my, my music is, I like listening to it.

Let's put it that way.

Yeah.

So, isn't that interesting?

Do you, like, are you happy to be in the kitchen?

No, they're off their singing.

Oh, yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, that's kind of really cool.

It's a hardhouse to take a conference call from.

I'm not going to lie.

Yeah.

My little guy's playing the drums.

Honey's always on the guitar lens.

He's belted out tunes once and a while.

Yeah.

So, it's a tough joint to get a bit of peace and quiet.

But I love it.

I mean, music and food.

They're the two, two of my favourite things in the world.

I can't ask how things in L.A. after the fires and everything now.

How things settling down in?

Yeah, it's coming down.

Look, we're a year on from the fire.

And poor old palisades are still just starting that rebuild.

So, it's taken a minute to get going.

So, you have a fabulous farm sort of upmellum.

Yeah.

Each way, that was all okay.

Yeah, we skated around at thank goodness.

Yeah.

But the neighbourhood's been really devastated, which has been challenging.

But yeah, we're getting back on our feet.

Yeah, good.

Just on a lie to note, as we say, good bye.

You've got to give us some tips for dinner time, right?

Yes.

What's the one thing that we need to have in the closet?

What's the call of pantry, probably?

What's the closet in the kitchen called?

That's the end of it.

I've been the door.

I hope you like it.

You know, when you get into the kitchen right where the sink thing is

and you open those doors, is that called a closet?

That is called a pantry.

What's the one thing we need to have in the pantry?

Well, you know what?

I think, take something you love.

You, for instance, Larry, you love whisky, right?

You've got this incredible new whisky.

If you love an alcohol, you can create a dish with that booze.

Whether it's wine or whether it's a spirit.

And I think that just having one thing that you attach to,

it's always easy.

If someone says, I want you to come up with a dish

with chicken.

You're like, cool.

I know exactly what to do.

If they say, just make anything.

Then you're like, oh, God, that could be so many things.

So choose one ingredient you like, like you, for whisky.

There's a lot of things you can do with whisky.

Can you see real?

That's a good tip.

We'll go with that.

I made great to see your happy travels.

You want to off to Melbourne, right?

I sure am.

I've gone there for the Grand Prix.

How great to see.

Happy weekend.