I just signed to do my next book with Ecco Press, a new primer or encyclopedia. This will be my take on what classic Italian cooking is.

I don't put cream in any pasta noodles ever. I would use a little butter, but I don't ever use cream.

Unlike curing cancer or heart disease, we already know how to beat hunger: food.

Larousse Gastronomique is a veritable dictionary of cooking terms for the French kitchen. If a chef were allowed only one book, this would have to be it.

When you use it in cooked foods, it changes [the Tabasco flavor] a little bit; it loses a little bit of the bright acid that you love on it, but you get that more cooked heat and chile flavor down.

I don't think fine dining is dying, but I think those rare occasions when you really want the fanciness are diminishing... I think a lot of people are going to find simpler, more casual ways to enjoy an experience.

[If] we can celebrate that in a way that celebrates our love for New England as well as our love for the Italian culture as well as the American culture, then we've done something that's really good and supporting these fishermen who are doing the right thing in sustainability . . . paying attention to make sure we don't overfish our world.