Cooking is an art, but you eat it too.

And while other passions in your life may at some point begin to bank their fires, the shared happiness of good homemade food can last as long as we do.

Not everyone in Italy may know how to cook, but nearly everyone knows how to eat. Eating in Italy is one more manifestation of the Italian's age-old gift of making art out of life.

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

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.

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