Pasta is the one food I can't live without. It's the food I eat to fuel my running.

It's kind of like a midlife crisis kind of thing. When you turn 40, you have to run the marathon, while all the parts still work properly.

Selling wine is all about sizing people up, and it takes a certain amount of chutzpah. The tableside bottle sell is a very funny thing - you take a look at the guy's blazer, what kind of shoes he's wearing, what kind of broad he's with. Is he trying to be a hero?

I prioritize in life. I like to work, I do TV shows, I do a lot of Iron Man training. I enjoy kicking back on a good night and drinking wine until I go to bed, and having fun with my friends. You just have to make time for it and keep it balanced.

I think that, by comparison with $2,000 bottles of grand cru Burgundies, first-rate barolos, which sell for under $100, are undervalued ten-fold.

Babbo's menu is only four pages, but it's overwhelming - there are 20 different pastas in there, a lot of stuff. There is nothing I hate more than a useless, lazy menu with only three appetizers and four entrees.

I have a Madonna portrait done in the style of a Russian icon. My mother, the chef Lidia Bastianich, and I bought it together. It reminds me of her.