When I first decided to open a restaurant, I was turned down by several banks. It was the late 80's and many restaurants were failing. I refused to give up because I knew I had a good concept.

My favorite Aspen memory is saving an upside-down cake that had exploded from the high altitude.

I grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts. My background was modest, and I worked at a Portuguese bakery in town.

A lot of parents ask me how to get kids to eat more vegetables. The first thing I say is that it starts from the top.

You gotta have good olive oil. You should have a cooking olive oil and you should have a finishing olive oil, like an extra-virgin olive oil.

Anything made with love, bam! -it's a beautiful meal.

Food is very representative of a city's culture. In order to really get to know a place and the people, you've got to eat the food.

If you don't follow your dream, who will?

Life just doesn't hand you things. You have to get out there and make things happen. that's the exciting part.

Spice is life. It depends upon what you like... have fun with it. Yes, food is serious, but you should have fun with it.

If kids can learn how to make a simple Bolognese sauce, they will never go hungry. It's pretty easy to cook pasta, but a good sauce is way more useful.

But even so, I wondered--how well do we really ever know someone?

Not because we think that it's still about to happen, thus makes our future life as though yet to be exist.Human mind can't yet perceive the nature of future.

Home was truly the best place he could possibly be, but, alas, was not an available option.

Humility forms the basis of honor, just as the low ground forms the foundation of a high elevation.

Garlicky chicken is the best breakfast in the world.

I am not a veteran environmentalist. I don't live in a house made of recycled tires, I've never handcuffed myself to a tree, and I don't grow my own organic rutabaga.

There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history. It is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.

A man only becomes wise when he begins to calculate the approximate depth of his ignorance.

I want to see the glory of God invade this generation.

Being clever was when you looked at how things were and used the evidence to work out something new.