Taste: My Life through Food QUOTES

1 " And anyway one is never drinking alone. Someone else is always drinking somewhere. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

2 " when my parents are no longer alive, I will always be able to put their teachings and all the love they gave me into a bowl and present it to someone who sadly will never have had the good fortune of knowing them. But by eating that food, they will come to know them, if even just a little. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

3 " (Let’s face it, if men had to give birth, there would probably be only a total of about 47 people living on the face of the earth today as opposed to billions, and abortion clinics would be just another department in Walmart alongside auto parts, golf gear, and firearms.) "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

4 " That fucking timpano... "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

5 " Losing a beloved family heirloom is a very real personal loss; they're things that cannot ever be replaced or re-created. But perhaps the most precious heirlooms are family recipes. Like a physical heirloom, they remind us from whom and where we came and give others, in a bite, the story of another people from another place and another time. Yet unlike a lost physical heirloom, recipes are a part of our history that can be re-created over and over again. The only way they can be lost is if we choose to lose them. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

6 " I don’t know why, but we Americans feel little obligation to preserve what once was because we choose to see it as less than what is or what could be. Like children and adolescents, we have not yet learned that the present isn’t the only thing. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

7 " I have chosen to write about this painfully ironic experience because my illness and the brutal side effects of the treatment caused me to realize that food was not just a huge part of my life; it basically was my life. Food at once grounded me and took me to other places. It comforted me and challenged me. It was part of the fabric that made up my creative self and my domestic self. It allowed me to express my love for the people I love and make connections with new people I might come to love. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

8 " Now, I am not one who is necessarily drawn to the Michelin star. Often I find that many of the restaurants that have earned this coveted award are a bit fussy, to say the least, and I’ve left a few of them completely famished, as I have never found pretentiousness very filling. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

9 " I am hardly saying anything new by stating that our links to what we eat have practically disappeared beneath sheets of plastic wrap. But what are also disappearing are the wonderful, vital human connections we’re able to make when we buy something we love to eat from someone who loves to sell it, who bought it from someone who loves to grow, catch, or raise it. Whether we know it or not, great comfort is found in these relationships, and they are very much a part of what solidifies a community. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

10 " It is said that Negronis are like breasts: “One is not enough, two is perfect, and three is just too many.” Today I am tempted to see what happens if I drink four. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

11 " No, for some unknown reason, I feel more at home in the Italian Alps than I do in the brutal heat of Puglia. I like brisk autumns, snowy winters, rainy springs, and temperate summers. The change of seasons allows for a change in one’s wardrobe (I’m sartorially obsessed) and, most important, one’s diet. A boeuf carbonnade tastes a thousand times better in the last days of autumn than when it’s eighty degrees and the sun is shining. An Armagnac is the perfect complement to a snowy night by the fire but not to an August beach outing, just as a crisp Orvieto served with spaghetti con vongole is ideal “al fresco” on a sunny summer afternoon but not nearly as satisfying when eaten indoors on a cold winter’s night. One thing feeds the other. (Pun intended.) So a visit to Iceland to escape the gloom of what is known in London as “winter” was an exciting prospect. However, my greatest concern, as you can probably guess, if you’re still reading this, was the food. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

12 " I was flabbergasted as it was a distant scream from any catering I had experienced on any film set. I couldn’t help but stare in disbelief at the cast and crew eating together inside a truck so elegantly appointed, while gay Paree buzzed away around us. The whole thing was so wonderful, civilized, and strange that there is a part of me that thinks perhaps I may have just dreamed it all. If so, I’d like to dream it again on every film I make from now on. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

13 " I don’t know why, but I have always been drawn to northern climes much more so than to warmer parts of the world. I find the redundant sunshine of Southern California mind numbing, the humidity of the American South loathsome, and the tropics make me want to curl up into a ball and die before I drown in my own sweat. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

14 " Tomato Salad — SERVES 4 — 8 small ripe tomatoes (quartered or halved, depending upon their size) 1 garlic clove, halved A glug of EVOO A small handful of basil leaves, torn A splash of red wine vinegar (optional) Coarse salt Place the cut tomatoes in a bowl with the garlic, olive oil, basil, and vinegar, if using. Toss. Salt a few minutes before serving. (Adding it too soon will draw the water out of the tomatoes and dilute the dish.) "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

15 " The Martini No one really knows the true origins of the drink that E. B. White called “the elixir of quietude.” Some say a bartender invented it at the end of the 1800s in the town of Martinez, California. Others say other things. Too many people say too many things and I wish they’d stop. In the end it doesn’t really matter. The only thing that matters is that the Martini exists. And to me it matters a great deal that it exists in its driest form. (The word “Martini” will always be capitalized within these pages.) "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

16 " Although I pride myself on being able to handle my liquor, due to the absence of ice cubes and their diluting effects on the alcohol, one of these can be enough for me to ask the waiter if he would discreetly remind me of my own name. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

17 " Edible "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

18 " To me, eating well is not just about what tastes good but about the connections that are made through the food itself. I am hardly saying anything new by stating that our links to what we eat have practically disappeared beneath sheets of plastic wrap. But what are also disappearing are the wonderful, vital human connections we’re able to make when we buy something we love to eat from someone who loves to sell it, who bought it from someone who loves to grow, catch, or raise it. Whether we know it or not, great comfort is found in these relationships, and they are very much a part of what solidifies a community. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

19 " It allows for free personal expression like painting, musical composition or writing and yet fulfils a most practical need: the need to eat. Edible art. What could be better? "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food

20 " Others argue that the lack of salt in Florentine bread is because unsalted bread lasts longer, or it’s the result of an innate or inherited Tuscan parsimony stemming from a time when Italy was divided into city-states and wars were fought over necessary and coveted commodities such as salt, which was very dear. When we lived in Florence we never could get used to the unsalted bread, which we found dry and tasteless. I must confess that sometimes I think the best bread in Italy is in France. "

― Stanley Tucci , Taste: My Life through Food