TV Tango: When young teens watch FOOD FOR THOUGHT, what main lessons do you want them learn?

Claire Thomas: One of the most exciting things for me is that it started out as a show for younger viewers -- so kids in high school and college -- but I've noticed that the fan base really has extended to not only that group, but to young moms and young families. That's really exciting for me, because that means that it is basically a show for people interested in getting into food and interested about having fun in the kitchen.

I am not a trained chef, so I came to food just for passion and love for it. My hope is that people's takeaway is that "If I can do it, they can do it" and food is a wonderful place to have a lot of fun and learn about yourself and the world around you. It's a great way to have a wonderful experience with family and friends.

TV Tango: You said that families are watching. Did that happen because teens started to watch and said, "Hey, mom and dad, you gotta watch this show"?

Claire Thomas (continued): I also have a lot of male viewers, which is a lot of fun for me. It's not just young moms and young kids. I make very guy-friendly food, as well.

I also think it has to do with the style of food I make. I make food that kids love, but, honestly, it's geared toward an adult palette. It's something that hopefully any family can adapt to whatever their tastes are.

TV Tango: Do you have any stories from kids watching and telling their parents to watch so they can change the way they eat?

Claire Thomas: I definitely have some very vocal, young fans. I know of a few five-year-olds who are fans of mine.

One of the most exciting moments I heard was from a dad, actually, whose young daughter was a fan of the show. She was five-years-old, and she saw the pilot episode, actually, which was definitely a risky episode because it featured a "lasagna," which was made with fresh vegetables. There's no pasta in it; there's no meat sauce. It doesn't have traditional things you would see in lasagna. It was made with shaved zucchini, roasted tomatoes, and lots of really delicious fresh ingredients. She turned to her dad and said, "Daddy, I want to make that. I think I can make that." The dad went off to the market and got all the ingredients. He was surprised, because usually his daughter wants stuff that would be on a kid's menu, like grilled cheese or spaghetti. He was really excited to see that she was looking forward to having her vegetables, and was really excited about how they were presented. It looked like something really fun and really delicious, rather than [just hearing] "Eat your broccoli" and that kind of thing.

TV Tango: What adventures can viewers expect for the rest of Season 2 on FOOD FOR THOUGHT?

Claire Thomas: We've got some really fun stuff coming up.

I'm actually in the process of recipe testing for the second half of Season 2, so I know we're going to be featuring one of my absolute favorite styles of food: Thai food. We're going to be looking to Thailand for flavor inspiration. We're going to be featuring breakfast -- breakfast is one of my favorite meals of the day -- so we'll have some delicious breakfast recipes. Then, also an entire episode about make-ahead meals.

Believe it or not, I'm actually a bit of a lazy cook. I don't like to do more work than I have to, and I definitely don't want to spend more time in the kitchen than I need to, if I'm hosting friends.

The whole idea for the episode was to do a make-ahead dinner party, because I'd been playing around with some ideas about "I like to have friends over and I like to make things ahead of time, so I don't have to be in the kitchen." I think that will be a really fun episode, because it's all about stuff you can make the day before -- or even two days before -- that are still absolutely delicious for friends and family that come over to visit.

TV Tango: Speaking of make-ahead dishes for parties, did you host a Super Bowl party?

Claire Thomas: I actually did not officially host. I guess I'd say I catered my sister's Super Bowl party? [laughing]

My sister [Amanda] and I live together. She's a fantastic jewelry designer, and all of her friends work in the fashion industry. Needless to say, Amanda is not much of a cook. She's been on the show a few times though, so everybody should be familiar with my sister, Amanda. She asked me, "I'm having some friends over, would you mind making some stuff?" Of course, I got overexcited and ended up making a ton of stuff -- some of these were recipes I was testing for a Game Day episode that's coming up this season.

I made some really delicious fresh nachos. The trick with those is you mix all of your flavors in with the cheese, so everything's really evenly distributed and super delicious all the way through. I made homemade queso dip and three different types of salsa. We made my aunt's famous chili, which was fantastic.

The really big hit of the meal was that I made beer brownies for dessert [which she wrote about on her blog two days ago]. Everyone really loved those. I used stout, a really dark brewed beer to put into the brownies. Stout and porter have this really chocolate flavor already, and the bubbles from the beer make the brownies really light. They're still super rich and fudgy, but they have a lightness, so they're not heavy.

Claire Thomas (continued): I love using beer, in baking especially. That was a really successful recipe I was really excited about. You want to use fresh beer [instead of stale beer], because the bubbles are part of the reason you might want to use beer.

You can use beer in interesting applications, definitely. I love cooking with beer. Beer is amazing with food, especially with cheese. Actually, I prefer beer with cheese rather than wine with cheese.

You can usually find a beer that will work anywhere you would use wine in a meal. For instance, I love steaming mussels with Witbier instead of a white wine. That is just such a delicious combination.

TV Tango: What dishes do you suggest men make for their loved ones on Valentine's Day?

Claire Thomas: I have the sneaky ones that guys can make that will totally impress their lady friends.

I have to say my molten chocolate cake is one of those dishes that looks very impressive, because it's hot, it's gooey, it's dark chocolate. I don't want to perpetuate the trope that women love chocolate, but, as a woman who loves chocolate, I think it's more that chocolate is awesome and women love awesome things. I think that might be what it is. My dark chocolate molten cakes were featured last season. What I love about them is that they take 15 minutes to make; so very little cooking time. You can whip up all the ingredients ahead of time, then bake them for 10-12 minutes, depending on how gooey you like them, and out comes this gorgeous, really gourmet-looking little cake. But it didn't take up that much time, you really only dirtied one pot, and everybody is impressed with you, even though you know better.

That's one of my favorite desserts to whip out.

TV Tango: What should women whip up for men for Valentine's Day?

Claire Thomas: I guess it depends on the guy, doesn't it?

TV Tango: Well you generalized quite well for women, how about men?

Claire Thomas: That women love awesome things? I'd have to say you could probably say the same thing for men. In that case, what is an awesome dish that I think guys would really enjoy?

I don't know if this is the sexiest or most romantic sounding dish, but I love pasta. There's something really beautiful and delicious about it, because it's the texture, the sauces. It's just really central, and I love pasta. It's a carbohydrate; so I love it. If you made it past the first or second date, the mutual embarrassment of eating pasta in front of each other is OK. It's probably not a good first-date idea, but by the third date, you're safe.

Pasta, soup and tacos. You can't do any of those on a first date. There's no way to look graceful doing it.

[For Valentine's Day], I'd have to say pasta. Two of my favorite dishes right now would be on my blog, which I featured recently. [The first is] a spicy chicken meatball recipe with arrabiata, arugula and red onion. It's so delicious. It's very light; so you're not going to be weighed down and heavy at the end of the meal. You're not going to feel like you just ate a ton of pasta. It's super delicious. It has a little bit of heat, so if your guy likes a little bit of spice, then you can definitely kick that up.

I also love Aussie Pasta. There's nothing Australian about it, but it's just that my mum is Australian. Anyone who watches the show knows that I'm very connected with my Aussie heritage. It's called Aussie Pasta because it's the first recipe I ever came up with, and I made it for my mom, specifically, and for my family. It's a really simple pasta dish that is so delicious. You buy fresh sausage -- it's really important that it's fresh, meaning that the casing can come off -- from your butcher, and that makes a meatball. You don't have to make your own meatball mix, you just have to buy the sausage. It's so simple to make. It's very much foolproof. What I like about it is that you can whip it together and let it simmer on the stove for as long as you want, until you want dinner to start. It's a great dish you can have going, while you get ready, light candles, pour wine, and all of that kind of stuff.

TV Tango: How do you teach people to get creative in the kitchen, getting them to understand that recipes are just someone else's suggestions?

Claire Thomas: Usually, I say that verbatim on the show.

TV Tango: Right, you say that, but that's not necessarily teaching them.

Claire Thomas: The way I can teach people to be more creative in the kitchen is by showing them. For instance, when I'm cooking with garlic, I'll say, "I love garlic, so I add more, but you don't have to add as much, if any at all." It sort of depends on what your palette dictates.

One of the things on the show that I always try to weave in is options and adaptations. For instance, the Aussie Pasta recipe I just described. That's the type where you can do chicken sausage, you can do pork sausage, you can do turkey, or you can use no sausage at all. You can use fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes. There's all these different things you can do to make it work for you.

I think the space where you really see those lessons come to light are when I'm working with very simple ideas. For instance, we did a grilled-cheese episode. Most people think of it as this very simple thing that's very delicious -- it's just bread and cheese and that's it. I gave mine an Indian spin, because my friend was on -- he's Indian and we were talking about Indian cuisine. I did a grilled cheese with English cheddar and mango chutney, and then created a tomato sauce that you could dip the sandwich in that had garam masala in it and other spices. It borrowed Indian flavors, but applied it to a really simple dish.

For instance, if you wanted to do that with Chinese flavors, Mexican flavors, Italian, whatever you wanted to do, you could take that grilled cheese and really turn it into something that is delicious and very specific to you.

TV Tango: Speaking of grilled cheese...what's the next food craze in Los Angeles? We had a nice run with cupcakes, food trucks & grilled cheese, all of which later swept across the nation?

Claire Thomas: I think pie is really making a big comeback.

Evan Kleiman is probably one of my favorite people. She's the host of "Good Food" [on KCWR in Los Angeles]. She hosts a pie competition every year, and what I noticed is that every year it gets a little bit bigger and more guys get involved, which is fantastic. There's the whole idea of savory pies.

I've noticed that pies are just popping up on menus non-seasonally, meaning that they pop up on Summer menus and Spring menus. It's not just for Thanksgiving.

I love pie. I think it's something you can make savory or sweet, and they're so adaptable. You can put any kind of fruit in it. You can fill it with whatever you like, and everyone can have their own recipe. I think its adaptability is what's going to make pie this really huge trend, similar to cupcakes. With cupcakes you can do practically any flavor profile, and people will really enjoy it.

I think for a trend to really hold and be fun and interesting for the mainstream or larger audience, you have to have that adapatability factor, and pie definitely has that.

TV Tango: Right, because I thought that macaroons were going to make a run, but they never caught on because they don't have that adaptability.

Claire Thomas: Yeah, and I think they're too fussy to make at home. French macaroons are delicious to eat and they're so beautiful -- that's why they're all over Pinterest, right -- but they're just fussy. It's meringue. You're dealing with egg whites. It's very much Patisserie-style food; so you have to have technique.

With pie, making the right pie crust is a technique and a miracle unto itself, but I feel like that's something you can work on at home and you can adapt. It's something you can do with your mom, your grandma, whoever. It doesn't have the fussiness factor that macaroons do.

TV Tango: Urban farming. Local fad for Los Angeles or up-and-coming trend?

Claire Thomas: Oooh, I definitely think it's an up-and-coming trend. I think it will wax and wane. I'm sure there's definitely that first explosion of excitement, where everybody thinks they're going to become a gardner -- oh, heirloom carrots, and everybody's excited -- and then it dies down. I do think that it's going to be something that lasts, simply because it simply needs to [especially] the more urban sprawl we get and the less connection we have with nature and the outside world. I remember growing up as a kid, thinking of Old McDonald's Farm, and then having the sad realization that 95% of farms actually don't look like that. In terms of using it as educational tool, local farms and urban farming are really important, even just in terms of edifying students and giving them a sense of where food comes from and how food actually grows. That's why on the [FOOD FOR THOUGHT] pilot, we featured the Venice Learning Garden, where, actually, I learned how to garden -- not successfully, mind you. I'm a terrible gardner; it's very disappointing. But I do love gardens and I love visiting them. David King [from The Learning Garden in Venice, CA] is an amazing gardner and educator, and I think what he's doing there is fantastic. I'm hoping to see more of that as well.

TV Tango: If you went on a celebrity version of CHOPPED, what ingredient would you be scared to see in a basket?

Claire Thomas: Oh my god, there's so many ingredients I'd be scared to see. It's endless.

I do not do well with offal, meaning kidney, heart, liver. It's not my jam. It's not my thing. I've totally tried it, tried to love it, but we are not meant for greatness together.

I would be very nervous to get uni, which is sea urchin, because that's quite a delicate thing to work with.

I think it would be equally scary to get something like an egg, because of the expectations. You can do so much with that one ingredient. How embarrassing would it be to just not do something great with an egg.

I guess it depends on what kind of fear: fear of humiliation or just terror? Something too exotic or something so mundane that I would just embarrass myself?

TV Tango: What dessert would you make from a basket that included mango chutney, white apricots, blue cornmeal, and bacon bits?

Claire Thomas: Oh, actually those all kind of go together. Totally, bacon with apricots and then chutney. I honestly think you could make like a corn pudding, made with a chutney-bacon gastrique. Then stew the apricots, and maybe a little whipped cream. That could be really good together, kind of like a play on savory and sweet.

TV Tango: If you could cook dinner for one TV character, who would it be and what would you make?

Claire Thomas: Oh my gosh, there's so many. I guess the question is who's one of my all-time favorite TV characters. I'm an obsessive TV watcher; so this very difficult for me to try to figure out who I would want to spend time with.

I think it would be really fun to hang out with Bunk and McNulty [from THE WIRE]. I think that those would be two hilarious, fun characters to hang out with. They're so Maryland; so I could never make crab. You're just not going to live up to the expectation. I'm going to go out on a limb, and I bet that Bunk and McNulty would totally like beer brownies.

TV Tango: You said you're an obsessive TV watcher. What are a few of your favorite TV shows currently on your DVR?

Claire Thomas: There's so many.

THE TASTE, because it has two of my favorite people on it: Nigella Lawson and Anthony Bourdain. Are you kidding me? I would watch them do anything. They're fantastic.

I love NEW GIRL. I think that's such a fun, funny show. I think I did a spit-take when Jess and Nick kissed. It was amazing. I love TREME, because it's such a beautiful show. I am counting down the days for GAME OF THRONES. I'm kind of a nerd, and if it involves sci-fi or fantasy, I'm probably watching it. I love any sort of historical drama, like DOWNTON ABBEY is a favorite as well.