Top 44 Lidia Bastianich Quotes

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.

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

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.

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.

I love making apple strudel.

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.

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

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.

Nature recharges me.

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.

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

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.

Make gifts meaningful by putting the time in creating them, whether baking and cooking, or in making arts and craft. It will all have more meaning for the giver and receiver.

It’s in the nature of Italians to live life with a positive tone and to celebrate the invitations that come along in life. Italian food is so conducive to all of that.

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.

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

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.

I cherish my beautiful Italian heritage.

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

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.

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.

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.

I think a ricotta cheesecake is very easy to make.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Caprese salad perfectly represents the colors of the Italian flag. While I am not so sure that the colors of the flag stem from the cuisine, there is no denying that those colors do evoke a typical Italian plate.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Everybody can cook. You don’t have to do anything fancy. You can do a nice antipasto spread with sardines, anchovies, some meats, marinated vegetables, fruits, cheese, nuts, and crackers.

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.

Holidays – any holiday – are such a great opportunity to focus on bringing the family together.

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?

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.

Chemistry was my college interest. Cooking is about chemistry.

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.

I’m not an entertainer – that’s not what I do. I want to teach viewers; I want to show them. I want to share my culture.