Tom Colicchio famous 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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#School #Kids #Exercise

Recipes tell you nothing. Learning techniques is the key.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Keys #Recipes #Technique

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Kitchen #Firsts #Want

Every chef should have an understanding of pastries or desserts.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Understanding #Chef #Dessert

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Kids #Vegetables #Years

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Dark #Color #House

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Mean #Home #Cooking

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

#Hate #Yams #Mountain

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Cutting #Stories #Chef

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Winning #Chef #Winner

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Sweet #Two #Flavor

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#School #Kids #Home

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Art #Thinking #Cooking

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

#People #Political #Hungry

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!
-- Tom Colicchio

#Jobs #Moving #Leader

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Thinking #Quality #Going Out

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

#Mean #Boss #Chef

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#School #Lunch #Issues

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

#Jobs #Firsts #Restaurants

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

#Want #Modern #Cooks

A steak needs fat to taste great.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Taste #Needs #Fats

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

#Men #Wife #Shaved Head

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#New York #Nice #Festivals

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

#Trying #Gimmicks #Something New

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Running #Kitchen #Chef

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Pay #Spices #Medication

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

#Night #Long #Lines

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

#Thinking #People #Matter

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

#Males #Certain #Unfortunate

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Running #New York #Yelling

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

#Law #Sausage #Sticks

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Hip Hop #Hips #Hops

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Jobs #Years #Knives

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.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Kids #Thinking #Flavor

In an ideal world for me, school lunch would be free for everybody.
-- Tom Colicchio

#School #Lunch #World

I think the most effective way to run a kitchen is to teach, not to just yell.
-- Tom Colicchio

#Running #Thinking #Kitchen