Tom Colicchio Quotes

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 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.

A steak needs fat to taste great.

I call all chefs cooks. They're all cooks. That's what we do, we cook. You're a chef when you're running a kitchen.

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.

Recipes tell you nothing. Learning techniques is the key.

I dont know too many parents that want to feed their kids soda, but high-fructose corn syrup is cheap. The price of soda in 20 years has gone down 40 percent while the price of whole foods, fruits and vegetables, has gone up 40 percent and obesity goes up right along that curve.

Every chef should have an understanding of pastries or desserts.

Im 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.

I know from personal experience, if a chef yelled at me in a kitchen, the first thing I'd want to do is hit them with a pot.

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.

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.

Once you have your basics down, you can start breaking the rules.

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

Mushrooms can be very fancy. It's the closest you can get to eating dirt.

Most cooks try to learn by making dishes. Doesnt 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 youre cooking.

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

When I was 26, 27 years old I was running a kitchen in New York, and I was a raving lunatic. The older you get, you figure out you don't need to do that. You realize at a certain point, there's a certain gravity to what you say and what you do. If that's not enough, all the yelling in the world is not going to matter.

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

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

You have to know the classics if you want to cook modern food.

With conglomerates selling companies to liquidators, who close down plants and move to non-union areas, it's about time progressive union leaders step in to stop such job-losing tactics... ESOP should become a part of future bargaining packages!

We're adults. We're the ones who should teach the kids what's good to eat. I don't think the government should ever regulate what we eat at home, but we're feeding them in school with tax dollars. Quite frankly, if my tax dollars are being spent to feed kids, I'd rather feed them better food.

I'd like to see 'Top Chef: Amateur'. Sometimes we have an amateur chef on the show and they just can't cut it against the pros but there are some great stories there.

Too often, chefs just want to experiment - they want to use liquid nitrogen before they know how to use heat.

As a chef, I had started working with groups like Share Our Strength and various local food banks in New York, raising money for hunger-related issues. And not only me, but the entire restaurant industry has been very focused on this issue.

I don't really like money - I like the things you can buy with money.

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.

Many of them have accomplished a lot before they ever get to 'Top Chef' although they're not well known. The show just provides them with a platform. There's just one winner and on some seasons you can get numerous chefs that are really good. Even if they don't win, they're all talented.

A lot of professions happen to be male-dominated because women drop out at a certain point. It's unfortunate.

Every season we try to do something new. And not for gimmicks. We feel the show has to evolve and keep changing.

I can't deal with a lot of spice but I have to eat it. I pay the price - I'm on medication for heartburn, so that's how I deal with it.

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

I get angry when I think that people are blatantly incorrect on matters of fact.

I know nothing about hip-hop... There's only so many times you can grab your crotch and prance around stage. I'm gonna get slammed now for this.

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.

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.

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.

People are not hungry because we dont produce enough. People are hungry for political reasons.

Asian food is very easy to like because it hits your mouth very differently than European food does. In European food, there may be two things to hit - maybe sweet and salty, maybe salty-savory, … but Asian kind of works around, plus you have that distinct flavor that’s usually working in Asian food.

I know how to make sausage, and now that I've seen how laws are made, I'll stick with sausage.

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!'