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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

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Tom Colicchio
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: August 15
Chef
Restaurateur
Elizabeth
New Jersey
Would
Skills
Second
Veal
Learned
Butcher
Break
Butchers
Jobs
Knife
Every
Knives
Years
Six
Good
Legs

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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.
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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.
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Every chef should have an understanding of pastries or desserts.
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As a chef, I had started working with groups like Share Our Strength and various local food banks in New York, raising money for hunger-related issues. And not only me, but the entire restaurant industry has been very focused on this issue.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Mushrooms can be very fancy. It's the closest you can get to eating dirt.
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A couple of months ago, I was down in Florida for the Food and Wine Festival. And this journalist grabbed me and said, 'How does it feel to be a TV guy? You're no longer in the restaurant business.' And I laughed. I asked him, 'How long do you think it takes me to do a season?' He said, 'Well, 200 days.' And I was like, '200 days? Try 20!'
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I can't deliver lines, but I can talk about food all night long.
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Men with shaved heads are always better. Just ask my wife.
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I don't really like money - I like the things you can buy with money.
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A lot of professions happen to be male-dominated because women drop out at a certain point. It's unfortunate.
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'Chef' doesn't mean that you're the best cook, it simply means 'boss.'
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