Food Network stars dish on favorite food destination memoriesBy Jerry Shriver, USA TODAY
USA TODAY reader Shehia Khan of Lombard, Ill. asks TV's top chefs ... What is your favorite food memory of a specific destination?"
Anne Burrell Executive chef of Centro Vinoteca in New York, Burrell served as Mario Batali's sous-chef on Iron Chef America. Her new Food Network series, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef (Sundays, 9:30 a.m. ET/PT), premieres June 29.
"A fter I graduated from culinary school in the States in 1996, I did an externship at a restaurant in Tuscany, in Villa a Sesta, a town with about 60 people in the middle of nowhere. I soon began thinking, 'OK, I've been here awhile, let's move on to the next place. The owner of the restaurant kept saying, 'Wait, wait, the new olive oil is coming.' I said, 'What's the big whoop?' On the first day the
frantoia (olive oil press) opened, we burned toast in the fireplace in the restaurant and then rubbed garlic on it three times. Then we ran across town to the
frantoia and put our warm bread underneath the centrifuge where the new oil came out. I've never tasted such a pristine flavor in my life, warm, running down your face. It was grassy, peppery, rough, made you cough a little bit in the back of your throat. You could feel the sun and dirt and history in the one little bite. He said, 'Get into it and enjoy it!' It was really one of most perfect flavors I have ever encountered. It makes me emotional thinking about it. Now, every time I have Tuscan oil, it takes me back to that a little bit."
Tyler Florence The veteran chef and cookbook author has served as host of several Food Network shows, including the current Tyler's Ultimate (Saturdays, 9 a.m. ET/PT). This fall he'll open a restaurant, Bar Florence, in San Francisco. MORE HERE 
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