[On cooking:] What you keep out is as significant as what you put in.

In the Italian kitchen, ingredients are not treated as promising but untutored elements that need to be corrected through long and intricate manipulation and refined by the ultimate polish of a sauce.

What people do with food is an act that reveals how they construe the world.

I need to smell its smells, to hear its sounds, to see food in a pot that simmers, bubbles, sizzles. I enjoy the physical involvement of stirring, turning, poking, mashing, scraping.

I don't cook 'concepts.' I use my head, but I cook from the heart, I cook for flavor.

80% of Italian cooking is done in a sauté pan.

Cooking is an art, but you eat it too.