Younger generations, they ask more questions, like on a recipe. But they ask them online. If my staff doesn't know how to answer it, I will answer.

All of my books have been about authentic Italian food in Italy and bringing that message about simple and authentic food.

I was an immigrant. I came here at 12. We were caught behind the Iron Curtain until I was 10.

By cooking with your kids, you can help them understand that food is a powerful tool in connecting human beings.

When I first came here, Italian food wasn't anything I recognized. I didn't know what Italian American food was; we never ate it at home. It was the food of immigrants who came here and made use of the ingredients they had.

When we're filming, I sometimes look into the camera and wonder who's out there, who will be watching.

I love that I've become a mentor, almost like a mother, to all the people out there that love Italian, that love cooking. I seem to make them comfortable.

When you invite friends over, especially for food, with the food you want to send out a message of affection, of appreciation, of celebration. But also of culture - who your family is.

I attended classes and taught classes, in Food Anthropology at Pace University, with an anthropology professor. You can trace history by the architecture and food of a place. Food is one of those things that transcends and stays in the culture.

With the Industrial Revolution, the production of food was delegated to big companies in order for women and men to be in the labour force, to come home, stick something in the oven, and eat. It became a big industry that does not have a love affair with food nor is really concerned about nurturing you or giving you the right nutrition.

I was born in Allied-controlled Pola. At the end of World War II, the victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of peace treaties and borders with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland. The Paris Treaty was signed on February 10, 1947. I was born a few days later.

For me, it's the ultimate to be able to nurture and nourish someone. They trust you. It's a basic form of intimacy in a community.

Why do you think millennials are so into food? It's the way they relate to each other.

Chemistry was my college interest. Cooking is about chemistry.

What I learned being a young child was respect for food. Don't throw anything away.

What really makes your business is your workers - their commitment, their knowledge, how you train them, how you treat them. They have to make the entity a winning entity.

When I started as a young chef, I was Italian, and I was a woman, and everyone else in New York was French and a man.

Julia Child came to my house and wanted a lesson in making risotto.

You should just feel comfortable with food and your own culinary culture, whatever your mother and grandmother know.

I love teaching.

Match the right food to the right occasion. Think about what you are celebrating. If you are honoring people, what are their favorite foods? If it is a holiday, what is the food for it? When you give an identity to the party, people appreciate that.

It's important to let children fly on their own. I understood that they needed to create their own life and not be my shadow. Let them make their own decisions, and support them along the way.

I started in the restaurant industry when I was 22, so I've had quite a long tenure, if you will.

Telling my grandchildren stories of my growing up is some of our favorite times spent together. They want to know what it was like and what I did as a child. They seem to be especially interested in the organic and simplistic setting I grew up in.

My grandmother had a courtyard of animals, like goats and chickens. She made ricotta cheese, cooked with potatoes warm from the garden, grew everything from beans to wheat. It was simple, seasonal food, and we all ate what was produced 10 miles from where we lived. It was that way for centuries.

There is a history to Italian food that goes back thousands of years, and there's a basic value of respecting food. America is young and doesn't have that.

When you are the host, you have to take the party into your hands like a conductor.

Eating is something we all have to do. When we sit down at the table, we nurture ourselves, and hence, all our resistance goes away. We are open to receiving good and taking it in with gusto and pleasure.

The best things - when I really feel that I'm communicating, and when I really feel that people are getting it - are simple, straightforward recipes. I think simple is the hardest to achieve because you don't have all those elements to hide behind.

The filming happens in my home, and I cook like I do at home, on my home stove with my house pots and so on. That's who I am. I am very true to my real profile.

Food is all about the story of a people through the ages.

Physically, women have some challenges in the kitchen, like lifting heavy pots on and off the stove. You learn to adapt; you learn to find a way. But the biggest challenge for women in this industry is how to balance a family with such a demanding career.

I love telling stories. You know why I love it? Because people love listening.

I cherish my beautiful Italian heritage.

There's a great need to convene at the table with family and friends. People are feeling it and wanting it. For me to be a minor player in helping with that, it makes me so happy.

I develop trust, and I think it's the most important to my growth. If my restaurants are always full and my books sell, it's this trust.

I cooked for the two Popes that were here. Pope Francis I cooked for and Pope Benedict before him. Pope Benedict is German. And I did a little research - his mother was a chef.

I'm simple in my approach and straightforward. I connect with the average person that is interested in food.

Italy is so influenced by others: couscous in the south, cinnamon in the north because of the Venetian spice trade - I just want to divulge as much information as I can.

Cooking is about the ingredients and responding, but risotto, specifically, is about the technique.

Nature recharges me.

I had my first child at 21, my first restaurant at 24.

The food of a country is my story. It is a small story, but people relate so much to it. I want to share that, but also the idea of bringing people and family together.

I am the perfect example that if you give somebody a chance, especially here in the United States, one can find the way.

We had our wheat. We made our own olive oil. We made our wine. We had chickens, ducks; we had sheep, cows, milk. So I was raised in a very simple situation but understanding really food from the ground... the essence of food and the flavors. And those memories I took with me, and I think that they lingered on.

I think that lunch is one of the most enjoyable and important things in the day. But you need to create the space and the time to do just that. And in Italy, we do that.

If we don't focus on when we eat - like, let's say we watch television or something - you eat much more. If you focus on the food - you smell it, you cook it - you're enjoying it already.

My grandmother was the genesis of my connection and passion to food.

My grandmother taught me the seasonality of food. She lived with the rhythms of nature. That's the way we should live. Why do we need raspberries in January flown from Chile?

A box of spaghetti can take seven minutes to cook, and you can make a sauce at that time with perhaps garlic, olive oil, and zucchini. Then you've got yourself a complete meal. The whole thing shouldn't take more than half an hour.