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.

Chemistry was my college interest. Cooking is about chemistry.

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.

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.

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 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 we're filming, I sometimes look into the camera and wonder who's out there, who will be watching.

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.

By cooking with your kids, you can help them understand that food is a powerful tool in connecting human beings.

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