Traditional Recipes Quotes

We began building this incredible new foundation in this restaurant, and that's what began giving me the left-hand side of tradition and the right-hand side, my new palate.

I grew up in Italy, so for me, Naples pizza is the only type of pizza that there really is.

I like spaghetti bolognese, I like baked beans on toast. I hate French food. I hate fancy food.

Of course, I will continue to share my favorite Southern recipes, just like my mama, grandmother and family shared with me over the years. And now, I'll be adding a little bit of a lighter touch to some of these wonderful dishes.

Being from Staten Island and Brooklyn, I'm used to eating pasta and meatballs every single day.

People come to Nashville where I live and they say, 'What's a great Southern restaurant?' Well, you got to know the right grandmother, because there's a lot of magic to good Southern cooking.

I think of [street food] as the antidote to fast food; it's the clear alternative to the king, the clown and the colonel.

I like being able to walk into an old town and find good local food.

Regular readers will know that curries are my favourite thing, and I wanted to go back to the start and really research the history and philosophy of Indian cuisine, rather than just toasting spices, slow-cooking onions. I was hungry to understand this food that I love so much.

Apparently, in the olden days, nawabs would get bored with their cooks very quickly and throw them out. All of them set up shop in a place called Bawarchi Tola. That's how royal food came to the streets. I started hanging around there. That's when I realised food is a lot more than just cooking on Sundays.

I make a bomb vaca frita. It's like a flank steak like with the ropa vieja, but it's fried with garlic and lime. And I make a really good picadillo.

My favorite Dominican dish to indulge in is anything with crab.

My husband and I grew up in India, so saag and tikka sauces are very nostalgic for us.

The table is the number one place we pass on family stories and it's the knowledge of where your family came from that helps build self-esteem and resiliency in kids. When we stop having dinners, we stop passing on those stories. And, of course, when you make food at home you actually know what's in the food you are eating. It is the healthiest, greenest thing you can do!

When I grew up in Italy in the 1950s, it was still very agricultural. Food was very important; produce was very important. Everyone made their own olive oil. It took me a long time after I moved here to understand that Americans are much further away from their food.

I cook a very exotic Hyderabadi rice dish called Hyderabadi biryani, which takes an entire day to cook, and the last time I cooked it was multiple years ago, but someday I'll cook it again.

The food in the South is as important as food anywhere because it defines a person's culture.

You cannot come to a Nigerian restaurant without having pepper soup.

When I was growing up in Russia, my grandmothers would cook the best pancakes in the world, the best meatballs, the best dumplings.

I learned so much in Laos. I learned that fried silkworm larvae are delicious. I learned how to make ant-egg salad.

Classics can be phenomenal when done right. A simple roast chicken dish could be the best thing you ever eat.

I just signed to do my next book with Ecco Press, a new primer or encyclopedia. This will be my take on what classic Italian cooking is.

There's still nothing like a home-cooked meal. Absolutely not.

Roberto Donna is a great Italian chef.

Food is a passion for me, especially Italian cuisine. I prefer to have somebody cook for me, but I can do some very nice pasta dishes.