Food is the common language for all of us.
There's a great need to convene at the table with family and friends. People are feeling it and wanting it. For me to be a minor player in helping with that, it makes me so happy.
I develop trust, and I think it's the most important to my growth. If my restaurants are always full and my books sell, it's this trust.
I cooked for the two Popes that were here. Pope Francis I cooked for and Pope Benedict before him. Pope Benedict is German. And I did a little research - his mother was a chef.
I'm simple in my approach and straightforward. I connect with the average person that is interested in food.
Italians are very conscious of what they eat, how they eat, and its digestion.
Italy is so influenced by others: couscous in the south, cinnamon in the north because of the Venetian spice trade - I just want to divulge as much information as I can.
Cooking is about the ingredients and responding, but risotto, specifically, is about the technique.
Nature recharges me.
I had my first child at 21, my first restaurant at 24.
The food of a country is my story. It is a small story, but people relate so much to it. I want to share that, but also the idea of bringing people and family together.
I love making apple strudel.
I am the perfect example that if you give somebody a chance, especially here in the United States, one can find the way.
We had our wheat. We made our own olive oil. We made our wine. We had chickens, ducks; we had sheep, cows, milk. So I was raised in a very simple situation but understanding really food from the ground... the essence of food and the flavors. And those memories I took with me, and I think that they lingered on.
I think that lunch is one of the most enjoyable and important things in the day. But you need to create the space and the time to do just that. And in Italy, we do that.
If we don't focus on when we eat - like, let's say we watch television or something - you eat much more. If you focus on the food - you smell it, you cook it - you're enjoying it already.
My grandmother was the genesis of my connection and passion to food.
My grandmother taught me the seasonality of food. She lived with the rhythms of nature. That's the way we should live. Why do we need raspberries in January flown from Chile?
A box of spaghetti can take seven minutes to cook, and you can make a sauce at that time with perhaps garlic, olive oil, and zucchini. Then you've got yourself a complete meal. The whole thing shouldn't take more than half an hour.
