If you play jazz, then you play with your fingers. If you're playing rock, you use a pick. There's really no rhyme or reason to that other than that's just the way it has been.
The belief that we are what the media says we are, what people perceive we are, is soon to be what we think we are. We are treated based on this warped perception. It is hard to get away from it.
I do very few standards. Hardly any. Other people's tunes that I do are usually obscure tunes, for the most part, although I do a couple of Duke Ellington tunes that are well known.
Close your eyes and place your finger on a map. Wherever it lands, that's the theme of the evening. So many times we settle for routine dishes. This forces you to try new cuisines.
My kids and I make pasta three days a week now. It's not even so much about the eating of it; they just like the process. Benno is the stuffer, and Leo is the catcher. They've got their jobs down.
The difference between 'Molto Italiano' and 'The Babbo Cookbook' is that the ingredient lists in 'Molto' are about half or even a third the size. In 'Babbo,' they are very long, they are very real. That's exactly how we make them in the restaurant.
Westerns were all daddy liked to watch. Give me some Clint Eastwood, some Charles Bronson, and I was a happy girl. It was our father-daughter bonding.
With chefs, the problem is we have to be very confident because people are looking at us for that. So pretty soon, you think you're a plumber, you think you're an electrician, you think you're an accountant.
The part that I know I enjoy most is the restaurants. You can't do everything, you know? For me, the priority has been being deeply involved in my restaurants and figuring out different ways to make them run better.
Of course no one thought of anything except of attacking the enemy. It lies in the instinct of every German to rush at the enemy wherever he meets him, particularly if he meets hostile cavalry.
Every lesson I learned as a kid was at the dinner table. Being Greek, Sicilian and Ruthenian - we are an emotional bunch. It is where we laughed, cried and yelled - but most importantly, where we bonded and connected.
I saw Al Foster with Miles Davis the other week. It was beautiful. But, the whole thing was, Al Foster played as well as everybody else, but all of them were quite brilliant under Miles Davis' direction.
I don't like drum solos, to be honest with you, but if anybody ever told me he didn't like Buddy Rich I'd right away say go and see him, at least the once.
I regrettably wasted time at university by being overwhelmed and intimidated by the talent of other composers. I felt stuck and didn't know what I was doing there. I enjoyed my experience, but I didn't grab it in the way I would now.
When I was 19, I made my first good week's pay as a club musician. It was enough money for me to quit my job at the factory and still pay the rent and buy some food. I freaked.
I love doing demonstrations. I think to be a great chef you have to be a great teacher. I love doing classes with people who love food and enjoy food, bringing them all around one table so to speak.
Absolutely, there is a connection between food and love. I always say, when there's love in my heart or I'm feeling particularly good, the food comes out that much better. And so I think Valentine's Day is a special day.
Growing up in Minnesota, I had a lot of freedom to run around, and we had go-carts and four-wheelers and all that stuff. I like that adrenalin-rush stuff. I did a little bit of dance, but mostly sports.
My priority is to turn people - especially kids - on to sports and being active so they don't even have to think about it being good for their health. If people participate for the fun of it, and believe me - it is fun, then fitness programs will be ...
You go to a restaurant in the States and kids have these game boards at the table. You don't see that in Italy or Spain. It's not because they can't afford to buy them, it's because that's not what eating together as a family is about.
As straight Americans we have two choices: we can choose to sit back and enjoy our rights as we have them, or we can realize that it is actually not freedom at all when our friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues do not share these basic rights.
