Food is kind of my entry card into everything. Food kind of opens the doors... because food is peace. It's good; it's positive.

Food is culture. Food is an identity, a footprint of who you are.

I love cooking vegan. Anybody can come in any time to any of our restaurants and get a vegan meal or a gluten-free meal as well.

You can freeze a nice sponge cake and then have a strawberry shortcake any time.

I think Chicago's a great city. Like New York, it's full of energy.

My success is that I have these two great cultures behind me. One is Italian. I've continued to nurture that. But I also feel very American.

Simplicity in preparation is the Italian way. Make easy dishes, and then you can elaborate the final preparation by decorating with vegetables or herbs or adding a dash of olive oil.

That's the beauty of risotto. You can make it any flavor you want. It's a great carrier.

My evolution came not as a plan but as opportunities came. People offer them when they see you're doing something well. It's up to you to recognize them, take them, and then dedicate yourself to them.

America has many cultures which makes it great, but it's difficult to create one strong identity.

Cooking for somebody is very personal.

What I continuously remember is when I was a child in the courtyard with my grandmother and we milked the goat and we made the ricotta. The still-warm ricotta from our goat, on top of a piece of bread, and we used to sprinkle just a little bit of honey or sugar on it. That flavor, that stays in my memory.

What I do is my life, but it's not like I spend 18 hours a day, seven days a week in the restaurants.

I'll get home from work on Friday night and take out some beans and soak them. The next morning, I'll put them in a pot for soup, then just keep chopping, chopping, chopping - carrots and celery and cabbage - and in two or three hours, you have this wonderful, mellow soup that fills up the whole house with its aroma.

I just love engaging a live audience - I love that.

Kids today are really so alienated from the source of food. If they are going to nourish themselves properly, if they are going to safeguard this environment we have and the economy that goes with it and world hunger that goes with it, they need to know about food.

I am a transporter of the Italian culture - culinary culture, family culture - because I love it, I thrive in it, and I think it's the right way.

Eating well, being around the table with the family or friends or relatives - it doesn't get any better.

Whether you talk about the olive oil, whether you talk about Aceto Balsamico, whether you talk about Grana Padano, whether you talk about Mozzarella di Bufala. These are all traditional Italian products that are hard to beat, and they're easy to transport and buy. You don't have to do much around it. Just eat them.

I think people make it too systematic in a way, like it's a chemistry formula. Food is not like that; food is very forgiving. Connecting and making do with a lot of the food elements can be fun and exciting.

Choose recipes like a base recipe; make a big pot of soup and freeze it. From then on, you can take it in any direction. Another day put rice in it, or then put corn or sausages. From there, it's endless.

I am blessed that the food business is good for me. Good to me.

I see how people connect with me on different level through my show, how they want to transport what I cook into their home kitchens for their own families. It's my responsibility to always make sure that is quality.

Don't accept what a grocery store has for you. Tell the store to get you want you want. If you want honey from a local farmer, organic honey, you tell them. We are in control. It's up to us as the consumer to get what we want.

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.