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Breakfast Is The Best Time For Me To Figure Out What My Kids Are Doing. Right After You Wake Them Up At Breakfast, You Pepper Them With Questions. You Can Get In There Because They're Not Protecting What They Thought Was Cool: "what Happened Yesterday?" "oh, Matthew Stole My Book And Ran Away And It Was Really Annoying..." That Wouldn't Happen After Lunch, Because Their Defenses Are Up. In The Morning, If You Lull Them Into A Comfortable Place, You Get More Honesty, And That's Without Being A Detective.

-Mario Batali

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Breakfast Is The Best

Mario Batali

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Breakfast Is The Best Time For Me To Figure Out What My Kids Are Doing. Right After You Wake Them Up At Breakfast, You Pepper Them With Questions. You Can Get In There Because They're Not Protecting What They Thought Was Cool: "what Happened Yesterday?" "oh, Matthew Stole My Book And Ran Away And It Was Really Annoying..." That Wouldn't Happen After Lunch, Because Their Defenses Are Up. In The Morning, If You Lull Them Into A Comfortable Place, You Get More Honesty, And That's Without Being A Detective.

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Everyone Makes Pesto In A Food Processor. But The Texture Is Better With A Mortar And Pestle, And It's Just As Fast.

I Might Use Milk If I Was Using A Touch Of Milk To Make Like A Lasagna Or A Baked Pasta. But Cream? That Is Totally Not The Way They Do It In Italy, And It's Not A Very Good Thing. It's Kind Of A Blanket For Flavor.

The Italians Were Eating With Forks When The French Were Still Eating Each Other.

Food, Like Most Things, Is Best When Left To Its Own Simple Beauty.

As Far Away As You Can Get From The Process Of Mechanisms And Machinery, The More Likely Your Food's Going To Taste Good. And That - That Is Probably The Largest Thing I Can Hand To Anybody Is Let Your Hands Touch It. Let Them Make It.

I Can Teach A Chimp How To Make Linguini And Clams. I Can't Teach A Chimp To Dream About It And Think About How Great It Is.

Chefs Don't Actually Say 'that's A Spicy Meat-a-ball,' Except To Indicate That There's A Bomb Threat In The Restaurant Without Alarming The Customers. Terrorism Is The Spiciest Meatball There Is.

Recipes Are Just Descriptions Of One Person’s Take On One Moment In Time. They’re Not Rules.

The Way The Bankers Have Kind Of Toppled The Way Money Is Distributed, And Taken Most Of It Into Their Own Hands, Is As Good As Stalin Or Hitler.

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If You Could Learn How To Make A Perfect Lemon Tart Then You Got A Story. If You Don't Feel Like That, Make A Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie, But Have Five Go-to Dishes Like That And You Can Move Them Around, Change Them Up Just A Little Bit, And Always Have Something In The Can.

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I've Been Lucky Enough In 20 Years In The Media To Have A Nice Soap Box That Put Me In A Position To Describe To An American Viewership That Tuscany Is Different From Umbria, And It's Different From Emilia-romagna And, Not That That Was News, But It Was Never Presented To Them In A Way That Was, "hey, Look. This Is A Different Plate From That Different Place." And Although We All Think Of "spaghetti, Lasagna, Ciao," As What Italy Is All About, There's All Of This Great Stuff... I Was Merely An Interpreter. I Wasn't The Developer Of The Content.

Every Super Bowl, I Do Different Food Each Quarter From Each Of The Hometowns Of The Teams Competing. So I’m Always Hoping For Cities With A Gastronomic Soul—not So Much Indianapolis Or Denver, Right? For Halftime We Have New York Hot Dogs From Papaya Dog. And At The End Of The Game I’ve Chosen A Dessert Based On Who I Think Is Going To Win.

In Case You're Wondering Why Guy Fieri Is Here, He Won A Contest.

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There's A Pretty Equitable Distribution In The Restaurant Industry Of How Money Gets Paid, Except For In The Kitchen. The Kitchen Is The Lowest-paid Group Of People.

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You Know, When You Get Your First Asparagus, Or Your First Acorn Squash, Or Your First Really Good Tomato Of The Season, Those Are The Moments That Define The Cook's Year. I Get More Excited By That Than Anything Else.

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I Got Some Media Coverage For Using The Tail, The Ear, The Oink.

Passion Is What Adds So Much Value To Life. And If You Think About The Things That You Do, There's So Much Juice Potential For Them If You Do It.

I Put Hibiscus Flower In Every Cup Of Tea I Have. It's Sweet, Sexy, And Cleansing.

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I Love Simple Food. I Like To Serve The Entire Animal, Not Only Because It Somehow Provokes A Customer To Think About It, But Also Because To Honor Of The Animal That Has Been Killed For Us To Eat, You Have To Eat The Whole Thing. It Would Be Silly To Just Eat The Chops And Throw Everything Else Away.

There Are Two Activities In Life In Which We Can Lovingly And Carefully Put Something Inside Of Someone We Love. Cooking Is The One We Can Do Three Times A Day For The Rest Of Our Lives, Without Pills. In Both Activities, Practice Makes Perfect.

I Was At A Party, And Some Squiggly Looking Dude With A Bow Tie Came Up And Said, 'how'd You Like To Be On Tv?' Turns Out He Was The Programming Guy At The Food Network. They Had Me Come Into The Office, And I Did A 'ready, Set, Cook' With Emeril Lagasse, I Believe.

The Pendulum Of Cookery Techniques Became More Significant Than The Actual Experience. And When That Happens, The Customer's Satisfaction Becomes Secondary To The Chef's Satisfaction. And In That Case, You Have An Upside-down Equation. Because The Customer Is The Basis Of Our Restaurant, First Of All, And If The Chef Becomes The Most Important Person At The Table - Even More So Than The Guests - Then Suddenly You're Left With Something That Doesn't Really Work.

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All The Information You Could Want Is Constantly Streaming At You Like A Runaway Truck - Books, Newspaper Stories, Web Sites, Apps, How-to Videos, This Article You're Reading, Even Entire Magazines Devoted To Single Subjects Like Charcuterie Or Wedding Cakes Or Pickles.

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As They Say In Italy, Italians Were Eating With A Knife And Fork When The French Were Still Eating Each Other. The Medici Family Had To Bring Their Tuscan Cooks Up There So They Could Make Something Edible.

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The Passion Of The Italian Or The Italian-american Population Is Endless For Food And Lore And Everything About It.

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Protein Has Been Intensely Over-represented On The Plate. Now, The Garden Should Be The Main Drag For Main Courses.

We Need To Figure Out A 'harvest System' To Collect The Produce That Stores Don't Put Out For Customers To Buy Because It's Not Perfect Looking. Frankly, The Stuff Left To Rot In The Storeroom Is More Beautiful To Me Than The Perfect Carrot. I'm A Gnarly Carrot Kind Of Guy.

What I Like To Do When I Go Out Is Enjoy My Friends And The Food Around It. If We Have To Stop And Give Five Minutes To The Chef, Then I'm Down With That. But If The Chef Has To Interrupt Every Course To Tell Us How Important This New Revolution That's Happening Is, Then I'm Not So Much Interested In That.

[if] We Can Celebrate That In A Way That Celebrates Our Love For New England As Well As Our Love For The Italian Culture As Well As The American Culture, Then We've Done Something That's Really Good And Supporting These Fishermen Who Are Doing The Right Thing In Sustainability . . . Paying Attention To Make Sure We Don't Overfish Our World.

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I Really Want To Be A Rock Star.

There's A Battle Between What The Cook Thinks Is High Art And What The Customer Just Wants To Eat.

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Find Something You Love, Because If You Love What You Do, You'll Never Spend A Day At Work.

Something You Love

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I Think The More Prominent The Actual Product In Its Raw Nature Is To Its Final Consumer, The More Sympathy And Likelihood They'll Consume It They'll Have. Some Friends Of Mine Are Trying To Do These Rooftop Farms In Brooklyn, And I Love That Idea. As Long As They're Using Clean Water And Real Soil And Creating Delicious Things By The Sun, Then Brilliant.

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Shop Often, Shop Hard, And Spend For The Best Stuff Available - Logic Dictates That You Can Make Delicious Food Only With Delicious Ingredients.

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