Parenting & Family Quote by Todd English

Domestic competence is Todd English's quiet flex here, and it lands because it sidesteps the usual celebrity-parent script. He isn't selling a sentimental tableau of "family time" or a chef's tortured devotion to craft. He's describing work: getting kids "working", peeling asparagus, helping at a dinner party. The phrase reads almost old-fashioned, like apprenticeship disguised as hanging out. In a culture that treats cooking as either aspirational content or invisible labor, English reframes the kitchen as a place where participation matters more than performance.

The subtext is brand management, but the good kind: the celebrity chef as normal dad, calibrating authority without sounding authoritarian. "I try to get them working" signals intention and discipline, then he softens it with specifics that feel tactile and unglamorous. Asparagus doesn't scream "kid-friendly", which is precisely why it works; it's a believable detail that resists the curated cuteness of letting a child decorate cupcakes. This is teaching a child that contribution isn't optional when people are coming over.

The dinner party context matters, too. Hosting is a social exam, especially for a public-facing chef whose reputation is literally taste. Bringing his 10-year-old into that arena suggests confidence and a desire to pass down not just technique but hospitality: the idea that feeding people is a communal act with responsibilities, not a solo act of genius. The final "It was great" is intentionally plain. No poetry, no chefly mystique. Just pride in a small, ordinary competence quietly inherited.