Lidia Bastianich

“I love cooking vegan. Anybody can come in any time to any of our restaurants and get a vegan meal or a gluten-free meal as well.”

“When you sit down to eat at a table, you are ready to take in nourishment - we all need to eat to live. Even in primal tribes, people ate together. It's the opening for friendship.”

“What I do is my life, but it's not like I spend 18 hours a day, seven days a week in the restaurants.”

“Julia Child came to my house and wanted a lesson in making risotto.”

“Eating is something we all have to do. When we sit down at the table, we nurture ourselves, and hence, all our resistance goes away. We are open to receiving good and taking it in with gusto and pleasure.”

“When I first came here, Italian food wasn't anything I recognized. I didn't know what Italian American food was; we never ate it at home. It was the food of immigrants who came here and made use of the ingredients they had.”

“Everybody can cook. You don't have to do anything fancy. You can do a nice antipasto spread with sardines, anchovies, some meats, marinated vegetables, fruits, cheese, nuts, and crackers.”

“Food is the common language for all of us.”

“My grandmother was the genesis of my connection and passion to food.”

“Italian food is seasonal. It is simple. It is nutritionally sound. It is flavorful. It is colorful. It's all the things that make for a good eating experience, and it's good for you.”

“You should just feel comfortable with food and your own culinary culture, whatever your mother and grandmother know.”

“Vin brule is a version of mulled wine enjoyed in Piemonte, in northwestern Italy. It's a perfect choice for holiday entertaining because you can double or even triple the recipe and leave it over very low heat, ladling it out as your guests come in from the cold.”

“America has many cultures which makes it great, but it's difficult to create one strong identity.”

“I love telling stories. You know why I love it? Because people love listening.”

“What really makes your business is your workers - their commitment, their knowledge, how you train them, how you treat them. They have to make the entity a winning entity.”

“I think people make it too systematic in a way, like it's a chemistry formula. Food is not like that; food is very forgiving. Connecting and making do with a lot of the food elements can be fun and exciting.”

“Cooking for somebody is very personal.”

“I think traditions change and modify with each generation. With new members joining the family, their customs and traditions have to be respected and combined with the exiting traditions. And the children that follow are part of that new evolving tradition and, as they grow, will have input that will, in turn, continue to evolve that tradition.”

“Italian food really reflects the people. It reflects like a prism that fragments into regions.”

“Italians are very conscious of what they eat, how they eat, and its digestion.”