We can't think narrowly. We have to think in the biggest possible way.

When you have the best and tastiest ingredients, you can cook very simply and the food will be extraordinary because it tastes like what it is.

The way we subsidize food makes it cheaper to go to McDonald's and get a hamburger than a salad, and that's insane. It's pure government policy.

We're, as Carlos Petrini says, we're on a train and it's going off the edge of the cliff. We have to stop the track and get off. Now we're in a jungle. We don't know how we're going to get out but we'll find a way. I've always believed in people power. I saw it happen when we organized around the AIDS crisis... We made an AIDS quilt that covered the entire mall. Everybody had a part in it and we can do this.

When 85% of the kids in America don't have one meal with their family, just imagine what that means. Just imagine, life is like a run-on sentence, you never pause. You're always grabbing something. You're eating in front of the television. You're out grazing with your friends, and you're learning and digesting the values of the fast-food culture. And that's what I really believe is destroying this world. We've been indoctrinated from early childhood that more is better.

I have a love affair with tomatoes and corn. I remember them from my childhood. I only had them in the summer. They were extraordinary.

It's a comfort to always find pasta in the cupboard and garlic and parsley in the garden.