Tyler Florence

After tremendous success with the Food Network, several restaurants, a baby food line, and a handful of cookbooks, Tyler Florence is focusing his attention on wine. At a party in New York celebrating the national distribution of his labels, I had an opportunity to talk to Tyler personally about his venture into the winemaking world.

Despite his interest in wine, Tyler had no prior experience with blending, so he partnered with the Mondavi family, who helped create his signature wines. The chef also used his perceptive palate to guide him: "After years of experience [working with food], I know what tastes good," he declared. This led to the creation of two wine lines: Tyler Florence Wines, a casual, everyday line, as well as TF, a limited-production line.

Tyler worked with a "less is more" philosophy when designing the wine labels, because he claims winemakers put too much on the label, and then "the essence of the wine becomes lost." For the limited-production line, everything is abbreviated; Tyler kept it bare bones to evoke a sense of nonfussy sophistication. A 1930s library card inspired his Tyler Florence wines, as a reminder that these were handcrafted, and features the chef's own handwritten wine notes. Learn more about the wines.

There are thousands of potato salad variations out there, but sometimes nothing beats good, old-fashioned classic potato salad. You know what kind I'm talking about: the potato salad that's coated in a creamy mayonnaise dressing and dotted with hard-boiled eggs.

Sure, you can pick it up at every grocery store and deli in America, but why not whip up a large batch of it at home? This recipe is straightforward: you boil some potatoes and toss them with a bunch of chopped veggies and a mayo-mustard sauce.

Although capers aren't a traditional ingredient, their salty, briny quality is welcomed in this salad. Prepare it a day in advance, so the potato salad has plenty of time to chill. For my favorite recipe, keep reading.

Though he races around the country serving up alternatives to fast food as the host of The Great Food Truck Race, Tyler Florence slows things down when it comes to feeding his own kids. The Food Network veteran and father of three — Miles, 14, Hayden, 4, Dorothy, 3 — is making it easier than ever for parents to cook healthy, veggie-rich meals for their kids. I sat down with the chef to discuss his new family cookbook, Start Fresh: Your Child's Jump Start to Lifelong Healthy Eating, and learned a little more about his one family meal concept. Here are some more excerpts from our conversation:

On why he's making children's food his new mission: If you think about most baby foods, at 33 cents a portion — and that’s two different companies making a profit on top of that — you have to wonder, what kind of quality is really in that jar. I’m a dog lover, and our pet food costs more per portion than the jarred [baby] food you find at the grocery store. When we start to piece this whole thing together, we started to realize that there was a market for super-premium baby food.

On avoiding the creation of picky eaters: Dr. Alan Greene writes in my book that if you don’t introduce children to foods by the time they’re 2 or 3, there’s a syndrome to protect themselves from experiences that may harm us. So if you think about that from a primate state, that if your mother hadn’t shown you something to eat by the time you’re 3-4 years old, maybe you shouldn’t eat it . . . they look at it like it will harm them.

On sending kids to bed without dinner: Sure, [we do it] all the time. They’re not going to die. If it gets to a point where you’ve had enough of them throwing the plate on the floor, then you have to remove them from the situation. Because they’re just destroying the experience for everyone else. It's really about knowing in your heart that you’re creating a well-balanced adult, and that you’re not going to create that child that is still eating chicken fingers when they’re 16 years old.

Keep reading to see what Tyler recommends parents keep in their freezers and whether or not he's opening a baby food truck!

It's hard to imagine how Tyler Florence juggles two Food Network shows, three signature restaurants, a burgeoning line of kitchen supplies, and a multimillion-dollar empire, but the chef does so with finesse — and he still finds time to publish a seventh book, a brand-new baby cookbook called Start Fresh.

While promoting the new tome, he took the time to talk about his restaurant, El Paseo, and the second season of Food Network's The Great Food Truck Race.

He weighed in on the latest in beef, why vegetables are superior, and the drama that goes down in his reality TV show's second season. Find out what he had to say when you read on.

• Would you eat PB&J sandwiches from a can? — Bites on Today
• Six things Anthony Bourdain vows he'll never do again. — Huffington Post Food
• What candy mogul Dylan Lauren eats to balance out all those sweets. — Grub Street NY
• Transform your wok into a popcorn popper. — Chow
• How to make patty melts on the grill. — A Hamburger Today
• On hating chocolate. — Gilt Taste
• BlackBoard Eats is free again, but paid subscribers won't lose out. — Daily Dish
• Tyler Florence now runs an estimated $50 million empire. — Eater
• The Rapture's almost here! Stock up for the end. — ShortList

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Last Summer, the Food Network debuted its first series devoted to the food truck craze, The Great Food Truck Race, a reality competition hosted by Tyler Florence. Today, the network announced that the show will be back for a second season premiering on Aug. 14 at 10 p.m.

Eight food trucks from across the country will compete in a "coast-to-coast culinary road trip" through cities like Denver, Memphis, and Atlanta. Although the Food Network hasn't released an official list of the participating food trucks, our friends at Eater have some guesses.

Did you watch The Great Food Truck Race? Will you tune in for its sophomore season?