My mom had me at 16 and took me every place she went. I remember going on peace marches. She tried to take me to Woodstock - it was pouring rain. It was on my birthday, and I was crying so much in the car they turned the car around and dumped me at my grandmother's house... I had a little attitude.

I'm not in the business to make people aware of me, and publicists are very expensive - they're $3,500 a month! I don't want to spend that kind of money so I can get a stupid article in 'Interview' magazine.

As cool as I want my kids to be, they're just like any other kid. They don't love eggplant unless it is covered in cheese.

I need savory sauces, stews and pastas. I can't live without pastas. My butt, you can tell I like to eat.

We go to several farms and look at foraging, and throw backyard parties with friends. We want to let people know they can enjoy a sense of Tuscany anywhere.

I married a Florentine. We bought a house, had a family, and after a decade in our little Hollywood nest, we said, 'Let's go to Tuscany.' Tell God you can't make him laugh, but the next thing I know, my cooking show has become a hit, and they're asking for more seasons, and they want it to be in the States.

My mother was really young when she had me, so she was a horrible cook, but we lived with my grandmother, who was fantastic. We eventually got our own place, and my mother started learning to cook. But it was also the '70s, so she was very experimental, and, well - thank God we had a dog.

We want to teach families how to cook Tuscan wherever you are. How to reuse your leftovers. How to trick the kids into eating whatever you want by putting it into a frittata.

I don't want to be 45 competing with 20-year-olds, running to go get Botox. I want to be an expressive actor hired for the age that I am, portraying women who are my age: 40. I'm just hoping I can find some of those roles to play. Otherwise, I have to find something else.

I have a fuller figure and sometimes like to hide my legs. Palazzo pants accentuate my small waist and make me feel a little like Katharine Hepburn.

We have friends in Italy who have these old stoves, and they turn out the most beautiful food. All you really need is time, the best ingredients, and love.

Cook what's fresh for the day. When you're using fresh fruits, vegetables, and foods, it's easier to keep the weight off. And I eat whatever I want - just not a ton of it.

I've had high-powered publicists in my career, and I've had publicists when they've had no power. I've run the gamut.

For me, I don't have a publicist. I don't want to talk about my personal life. I don't want to talk about my process. I don't want to be a model and do fashion shoots. It's nice to be an entertainer, but I'm a reluctant celebrity.

I've always been someone who can just move. Some people in L.A. are addicted. They have to be here; they come for pilot season and stay here.

I like acting. I really like acting. The career, it can keep you interested. With 'Entourage,' the characters are living a lifestyle that is kind of troubling. But the challenge is to make Shauna a person.

You know, you kind of lose some self-confidence after having kids because you'll never be the way you were. But I feel good.

My husband wrote me love letters while I was on location in Canada and pregnant. They turned into being about food, and it turned it into a cookbook. He called it 'The Tuscan Cookbook for the Pregnant Male.' It was kind of genius. When I took it a book agent, he was like, 'Men don't buy cookbooks.'

I wanted to come up with a hybrid show of sorts that wasn't your traditional 'dump and stir' type of cooking show.

My husband is from Florence. And he has a 15th-century barn that is completely rustic and very 'Green Acres'-like.

Thanksgiving was always a favorite holiday for me. The preparation was fun! My grandma and I would walk to the butcher on Jamaica Avenue in Queens, order the bird, and buy all the fixings at the market.

On the morning of Thanksgiving, I would wake up to the home smelling of all good things, wafting upstairs to my room. I would set the table with the fancy silverware and china and hope that my parents and grandmother wouldn't have the annual Thanksgiving fight about Richard Nixon.

I have a very high metabolism, and I have to constantly eat to keep on going.

I'm a girl who's curvy, and I'm Latvian, but I don't have hips, and I have a tiny waist.

To me, it's a religious experience to sit down at anyone's table. I feel so invited, like it's a sacred place.

I can't live without carbs.

I'm naturally a muscular gal with some curves, so eating a Mediterranean diet makes my body happy.

I have a full Tuscan lunch and dinner every day in my home; my husband's a fantastic chef.

Lunch is formal - that's when my husband and I have our dates. And dinner is formal: we sit down every day with the kids at seven o' clock.

I like to have my hair grow, because I need to have hair for different roles. But I'm a woman, so I'm always cutting my hair off and wishing that I hadn't.

I used to live above Manganaro's, when old Times Square was still peaking, and it still had a lot of diners and theaters on the forty deuce, as they used to call it. It was full of character. And it wasn't Disneyland. Now it's so touristy and full of bright lights, I can't stand it. It's like going to a big mall.

My mom did not have money. She was a single mom, on and off in periods between marriages. My husband, however, grew up on a wonderful farm in Tuscany, in Florence, and his family was so entertaining in terms of growing their own food and using the fruit of their land. We have very, very different experiences.

We sit down with the kids every single night, not that I want to every night - sometimes I'd rather be out with my husband having a martini at a swanky restaurant - but we sit down with our kids every night at dinner.

Food brings back memories. I had a mom that wasn't a good cook, so I would eat my grandma's food. It was amazing because it brings back a time almost in Technicolor. I see her house, I see her stove; I think about what it felt like when I was sick, and it felt like love.

I'm teaching my daughters to be ladies by showing them how to dress appropriately when they leave the house, and how to be thoughtful and polite.

I've always been a foodie. My grandmother got me hooked on cooking.

When you come into our house, you get a flavor for our life, our travels, our kids, our 18-year-old poodle who is like, blind, deaf and incontinent but so happy.

I'd love to give my girls a traditional Thanksgiving with turkey and all that jazz, but we've raised them to love Tuscan food so much that they don't care for it. My favorite is a nice polenta with beef stew and broccoli rabe on the side.

My husband, Gabriele, is a musician, and I love music, so you can bet it's a really important part of our home entertaining repertoire, even if it means Gabriele making a really good playlist for a dinner party.

In Italy, everybody buys silver for every special occasion. Baptisms, weddings, you get silver.

I have lots of shoes, but I have to be comfortable. Lately, I've stolen my husband's big, ugly Uggs to wear around the kitchen. I want to have them on, then slide into a fabulous heel later. Truth is, I often forget the heel.

I'm quite a restless holidaymaker - I can't lie down on the sand and don't like too much heat.

You need emotional intelligence; to be happy to take risks; to be competitive and to look forward not backwards.

I'm very direct, I don't believe in wasting time, in wasting words.

Loving something doesn't make it a good investment.

People have to understand that they're not good at everything.

I am a very loyal person and believe that people should be treated fairly in life.

Much as I'm loving the 'Strictly' experience, I'm sure I'll always be better known for my business career and my appearances on 'Dragons' Den' than I will for my cha-cha-cha or Viennese waltz.

I suffer from reverse body dysmorphia. When I look in the mirror I see somebody slimmer. It's quite a shock to see myself on TV, especially on widescreen.

When I sold Weststar Holidays, the idea was to take stock and stop and then decide in life - we were going to travel around the world or whatever we were going to do. After about two weeks my husband said to me, 'Oh for goodness sake Deborah, get yourself a business because this is driving me bonkers.'