Lidia Bastianich

“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?”

“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 think Chicago's a great city. Like New York, it's full of energy.”

“It's in the nature of Italians to live life with a positive tone and to celebrate the invitations that come along in life. Italian food is so conducive to all of that.”

“Whether you talk about the olive oil, whether you talk about Aceto Balsamico, whether you talk about Grana Padano, whether you talk about Mozzarella di Bufala. These are all traditional Italian products that are hard to beat, and they're easy to transport and buy. You don't have to do much around it. Just eat them.”

“Nature recharges me.”

“By cooking with your kids, you can help them understand that food is a powerful tool in connecting human beings.”

“Don't accept what a grocery store has for you. Tell the store to get you want you want. If you want honey from a local farmer, organic honey, you tell them. We are in control. It's up to us as the consumer to get what we want.”

“I started in the restaurant industry when I was 22, so I've had quite a long tenure, if you will.”

“I'm simple in my approach and straightforward. I connect with the average person that is interested in food.”

“Food is kind of my entry card into everything. Food kind of opens the doors... because food is peace. It's good; it's positive.”

“My grandmother had a courtyard of animals, like goats and chickens. She made ricotta cheese, cooked with potatoes warm from the garden, grew everything from beans to wheat. It was simple, seasonal food, and we all ate what was produced 10 miles from where we lived. It was that way for centuries.”

“When I started as a young chef, I was Italian, and I was a woman, and everyone else in New York was French and a man.”

“Younger generations, they ask more questions, like on a recipe. But they ask them online. If my staff doesn't know how to answer it, I will answer.”

“I think a ricotta cheesecake is very easy to make.”

“Traditions are our roots and a profile of who we are as individuals and who we are as a family. They are our roots, which give us stability and a sense of belonging - they ground us.”

“I attended classes and taught classes, in Food Anthropology at Pace University, with an anthropology professor. You can trace history by the architecture and food of a place. Food is one of those things that transcends and stays in the culture.”

“In 1981, we opened Felidia, and the newspapers, the city papers, the big timers came, and I got invited on the 'Today Show' and so on. A lot of food luminaries would come to Felidia - Julia Child, James Beard, they all came.”

“Physically, women have some challenges in the kitchen, like lifting heavy pots on and off the stove. You learn to adapt; you learn to find a way. But the biggest challenge for women in this industry is how to balance a family with such a demanding career.”

“What I continuously remember is when I was a child in the courtyard with my grandmother and we milked the goat and we made the ricotta. The still-warm ricotta from our goat, on top of a piece of bread, and we used to sprinkle just a little bit of honey or sugar on it. That flavor, that stays in my memory.”