Let's dive right in. In the 5th episode the Quickfire ingredient was chosen by the audience and it was cactus. I definitely would have preferred to cook with cactus on that one. I would definitely not do snake. Snake is really hard, especially if you haven’t cooked it. I look at cooking rattlesnake the same way I look at cooking something like something like calamari. It’s tough and you have to cook it either really long or slice it really thin and cook it really quick.

I thought it was silly when we did something similar in the first season. I think we had to cook octopus and we were only given half an hour. I understand it’s challenging, but don’t set everybody up for failure!

I would have loved to do a cactus curry. That’s where I would have gone with it. Mike Isabella won this one with a cactus and tuna ceviche.  I wasn’t surprised people hadn’t worked with cactus before. The first time I think I worked with it was in 2000 when I was in Oaxaca, Mexico and I’ve never used it in my restaurant. I can imagine that if I hadn’t taken that trip I would have never used it before.