Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" In New York, I'll walk down the street and someone will say, 'Nice show,' and that's it. If I'm at a food festival, it's open season. "

Related Quotes:

" If I'm doing an event, if it's a charity event, where it's a walk-around event, where I gotta put a thousand small plates out in the course of a four-hour event, I gotta make sure I can do something that I know I can produce, that's going to be consistent and good all night long. "

" I have very good knife skills. I learned to butcher on my second job - I was 18 years old. Every other day we would break down six legs of veal. "

" If you're dining with someone who wants the same cut, it's always better to get a 16-ounce steak and split it than to order two eight-ounce steaks. The longer something cooks, the more flavor it develops, so you'll get a better taste with a bigger piece of meat. "

" I think steak is the ultimate comfort food, and if you're going out for one, that isn't the time to scrimp on calories or quality. "

" You can buy a box of low-fat macaroni and cheese made with powdered nonsense. I'm not worried if I'm using four different cheeses and it's high in fat. It's real food. That's what's more important. "

" I think the most effective way to run a kitchen is to teach, not to just yell. "

" In an ideal world for me, school lunch would be free for everybody. "

" One of the first jobs I ever had was opening clams in a seafood restaurant, so I'm pretty quick at it. "

" I hate okra and grated mountain yam for the same reason. They're both slimy. "

" It's funny how I use social media because I don't use it to promote my restaurants that much. I use it for social issues and I think that's what it's for. I do a few things - I mess around with music a lot because that's a passion of mine. If something strikes me and I want to share it, I do. "

" I remember in the first season going, 'This is retarded. I can't believe they're making chefs do this.' But then it actually does show off certain skills. And at the end of the day, this is entertainment and this stuff is very entertaining. Is a lot of it ridiculous? Of course it is. But that's what makes it interesting. "

" There's a food revolution going on throughout the country. And it doesn't matter if you're down south, up north in Maine, if you're out west in Portland or Seattle. "

" So you can say, 'Get Big Government out of here, and don't tell me what to eat,' but when kids are going to school, and they're being fed junk, we're pretty much telling them what to eat, and we're telling them junk is OK. "

" My son, before he went to school, he'd eat pretty much everything. Then as soon as he went to school, he got some peer pressure, and other kids would say, 'Oh, you're gonna eat that. That's horrible. That's disgusting.' "

" 'Chef' doesn't mean that you're the best cook, it simply means 'boss.' "

" It's my belief that cooking is a craft. I think that you can push it into the realm of art, but it starts with craft. It starts with an understanding of materials. It starts with an understanding of where foods are grown. "

" My chefs don't apply for 'Top Chef'. They all know that there is no way. At the end of the process I look at the resumes of the last 25 options just to make sure they've never worked for me before. "

" You hit a certain age and - especially because of TV - the young cooks coming up say, 'You're a sellout, because you're doing something other than what you should be doing.' 'Top Chef' is a double-edged sword for me: There's a whole group of people who will not come to the restaurants because they assume I'm not in them anymore, all I do is TV. "

" Most cooks try to learn by making dishes. Doesn't mean you can cook. It means you can make that dish. When you can cook is when you can go to a farmers market, buy a bunch of stuff, then go home and make something without looking at a recipe. Now you're cooking. "

" I travel around and hear from so many kids. Their parents say they were always very picky but they watch the show and they want to try stuff. The show is entertainment, but I think it has done so much for the public perception of what food can be. "

" I can't deliver lines, but I can talk about food all night long. "

" A couple of months ago, I was down in Florida for the Food and Wine Festival. And this journalist grabbed me and said, 'How does it feel to be a TV guy? You're no longer in the restaurant business.' And I laughed. I asked him, 'How long do you think it takes me to do a season?' He said, 'Well, 200 days.' And I was like, '200 days? Try 20!' "

" I have kind of a weird technique with zucchini. I cut it into small cubes; sweat it in olive oil, adding just a little oil at time so it crisps. Then I cover it with boiling water, not stock, which really brings out the flavor of the zucchini, add lemon, thyme, and serve it with burrata and a fried zucchini flower. "

" Hunger is a political issue, and there are several things politically that are keeping people hungry - not funding food stamps adequately, not funding school lunches adequately. So there is a political solution to the problem of hunger. "

" My feeling is, if you're going to be called a celebrity, you might as well use it for some good. It's better to testify for school lunches in front of Congress than get drunk in a bar somewhere and misbehave. "

" I started cooking 30-something years ago. When I was 14, 15, I was a short-order cook in a snack bar. That was at a place called the Gran Centurions. It was an Italian-American swim club my parents belonged to. "

" I'm not a fan of grilling meat, since that tends to dry it out, and I find grill marks leave a bitter taste. A good steak house will offer different options for preparation, and I would ask them to broil or pan-roast the steak and finish it with butter. It ends up a dark chocolate color and stays very juicy. "

" This is what people don't understand: obesity is a symptom of poverty. It's not a lifestyle choice where people are just eating and not exercising. It's because kids - and this is the problem with school lunch right now - are getting sugar, fat, empty calories - lots of calories - but no nutrition. "

" I think the patterns are set very early when the kids are young. But at the same time, there are some flavors kids just don't like. "

" Men with shaved heads are always better. Just ask my wife. "