Quotes By Giada De Laurentiis

I spent time at my grandfather Dino's gourmet store where he brought in chefs from Naples to cook. I thought of them as rock stars.

I'm into very colorful food. Obviously lots of flavor, but I think we eat with our eyes first, so it has to look great. The presentation has to be great.

When I was a kid, for my birthday every year, my mother made me pasta bechamel, which is rigatoni with a white cream sauce.

Pasta doesn't make you fat. How much pasta you eat makes you fat.

Don't expect too much from yourself. What I like to do when I have a day off is make various cookie doughs and freeze them. Then I always have that on hand if I need it.

I have been blessed with a good, fun, and wonderful life, but I've also seen a whole lot of pain.

Every time I think I have something under control, it changes and I don't have it under control. I think it takes several years to get there. Jade is 19 months old, so right now I'm on alert all the time. And as a mom I think you're constantly worrying about things.

My goal is to make Italian food clean and accessible and beautiful and tasty, with simple ingredients that people can find at a local grocery store, because people don't want to go to a gourmet shop in search of items that will sit in their pantry for years after they use just a teaspoon or pinch of them.

All men want to be treated like kings in a relationship, and I think if women don't indulge that sometimes, their men are likely to stray and look for someone who can give that to them.

I eat a little bit of everything and not a lot of anything. Everything in moderation. I know that's really hard for people to understand, but I grew up in an Italian family where we didn't overdo anything. We ate pasta, yes, but not a lot of it.

Everything in moderation.

I write everything down. I e-mail the second I think of something, or I write notes in my BlackBerry calendar. I set up reminder alerts on my phone. And I have a notebook by my bedside so I can write down any last-minute ideas.

Talking to other people while you're cooking, it doesn't come naturally.

Attitudes toward food have completely changed.

Stock up your pantry and your freezer with things that aren't perishable: Your favorite jar of tomato sauce that lists 'tomato' as the first ingredient, lots of grains, olive oils, vinegars, tomato pastes, onions, shallots. When you go to the store, you only have to pick up meats and produce.

There's nothing like a home-cooked meal - nothing! When people ask me what the best restaurant in L.A. is, I say, 'Uh, my house.' It's more intimate. Food can connect people in a forever sort of way.

To a billion people around the world surviving on just a dollar a day, the question of what to eat tonight is more about life and death than about recipes. The struggle of poor people around the globe weighs heavily on me, especially now that I am a mother, which is why I work with Oxfam.

I'm comfortable in my own skin. I know I'm not going to ever be Cindy Crawford or Elle MacPherson.

My biggest bit of advice would be to spend some time actually helping caterers or Chefs, even if it has to be for free or as an intern of culinary externship. It helps immerse yourself in what you potentially want to do.

I keep my skin - especially on my face and neck - out of the sun. My brother died of melanoma eight years ago, and I've got SPF on all the time, 24-7. It makes you realize, the sun is a wonderful thing, but it can be a very devastating thing. So sunscreen is key, and a lot of laughter, too.

These days it's cool to be ethnic and to be different, but when I was a kid, it was not cool - at all. My friends would come over and my mom would make crepes with eggs, stuffed with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and spinach. And they'd be like, 'What is this?'

My grandfather's family used to own a pasta factory in Naples and they would go door-to-door selling their pasta. So his love of food came from his parents, which was then passed down to my mother and then again to me.

Pretty much every time I try something different or do something in front of a live audience, I truly think they might throw peanuts at me.

The summer before I went to culinary school, my family wanted me to take a job on a movie to make sure that I was making the right decision. I think they hoped I would change my mind about culinary school.

I grew up in the kitchen, mostly with my grandfather, my mother and my aunt Raffy.

I was so nervous to turn 40, but the last year and a half has been the most fun I have ever had.

I'm actually a very shy person, which is why I always chose to be in the kitchen. You can make people happy and entertain them, without really being there. You can make a very short appearance and then say, 'I've got something on the stove, gotta go!'

I think it can be hard for any man to sometimes be upstaged by his wife. So when I'm home, I work very hard to be Todd's wife and Jade's mother. I have no problem going back to those traditional roles. I try to be Giada, the young girl that he met 20 years ago and fell in love with.

My mother and I, our favorite part of any baked pasta is the top, where the cheese gets crusty.

My grandfather gave me inspiration to cook, and love food and flavors. My Aunt Raffie, gave me creativity and the inspiration to create new things. My mother inspires me to find simplicity in food.