Cooking tips from Food Network chef Ming Tsai Recipe

Me with TV chef Ming Tsai at the Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival

Those of you who have perused my celebrity chef posts might have concluded that I am a celebrity chef groupie.

Okay. It might be a little bit true. I rarely pass up an opportunity to go one-on-one with a famous chef. I'm still trying to figure out the formula: What makes some chefs so much fun to watch on TV? What does "star quality" mean for a chef?

This weekend at the Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival I sat through chef Ming Tsai's cooking demo. I've been watching him on PBS and Food Network for years. Guess what? Tsai is just as borderline geeky in person as he is on television. Which, frankly, makes me like him more. He's not a rock star wannabe like…