The most used piece of kit in my kitchen is my saucepan. I use it every morning to cook my porridge in. The least used piece of equipment? I'd say a food mixer. I've never used it I don't really know what they're for.

When I do a 30-minute meal for instance on Food Network that's my food you see at the end of the show and it's not perfect. And if sometimes things break or drop or the pasta hits the wall when I'm draining it they never stop tape. They just kind of let me go with it.

When you cut that eggplant up and you roast it in the oven and you make the tomato sauce and you put it on top your soul is in that food and there's something about that that can never be made by a company that has three million employees.

Food - I love nuts. I eat them all the time they're easy to carry around and I am never hungry all day long.

It's fantastic to strive towards a nice life where you eat nice organic food and your children go to a nice school and you can afford nice clothes and nice perfume and the hypoallergenic make-up. But there's never a day goes by and I mean this from the bottom of my heart that I don't think about where I'm from.

Never be a food snob. Learn from everyone you meet - the fish guy at your market the lady at the local diner farmers cheese makers. Ask questions try everything and eat up!

I learned very early that our health is always impaired by some excess either of food or abstinence and I never had any physician except myself.

I will never use a substitute for butter. Margarine is one molecule away from eating plastic. If I'm going to eat that type of food it's going to be the real deal.

There's never been a culture that wasn't obsessed with food. The sort of sad thing is that our obsession is no longer with food but with the price of food.

You go to a show and there's no food at all so if you're doing shows back to back you can forget eating. I remember standing up in the bath one day and there was a mirror in front of me and I was so thin! I hated it. I never liked being that skinny.