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You have to know the classics if you want to cook modern food.

Tom Colicchio

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Tom Colicchio
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: August 15
Chef
Restaurateur
Elizabeth
New Jersey
Classics
Cook
Cooks
Food
Modern

More quotes by Tom Colicchio

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It's my belief that cooking is a craft. I think that you can push it into the realm of art, but it starts with craft. It starts with an understanding of materials. It starts with an understanding of where foods are grown.
Tom Colicchio
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Too often, chefs just want to experiment - they want to use liquid nitrogen before they know how to use heat.
Tom Colicchio
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I can't deal with a lot of spice but I have to eat it. I pay the price - I'm on medication for heartburn, so that's how I deal with it.
Tom Colicchio
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A steak needs fat to taste great.
Tom Colicchio
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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.
Tom Colicchio
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I know how to make sausage, and now that I've seen how laws are made, I'll stick with sausage.
Tom Colicchio
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With conglomerates selling companies to liquidators, who close down plants and move to non-union areas, it's about time progressive union leaders step in to stop such job-losing tactics... ESOP should become a part of future bargaining packages!
Tom Colicchio
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I travel around and hear from so many kids. Their parents say they were always very picky but they watch the show and they want to try stuff. The show is entertainment, but I think it has done so much for the public perception of what food can be.
Tom Colicchio
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One of the first jobs I ever had was opening clams in a seafood restaurant, so I'm pretty quick at it.
Tom Colicchio
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I think steak is the ultimate comfort food, and if you're going out for one, that isn't the time to scrimp on calories or quality.
Tom Colicchio
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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!'
Tom Colicchio
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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.
Tom Colicchio
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A lot of professions happen to be male-dominated because women drop out at a certain point. It's unfortunate.
Tom Colicchio
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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.
Tom Colicchio
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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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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.
Tom Colicchio
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I dont know too many parents that want to feed their kids soda, but high-fructose corn syrup is cheap. The price of soda in 20 years has gone down 40 percent while the price of whole foods, fruits and vegetables, has gone up 40 percent and obesity goes up right along that curve.
Tom Colicchio
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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.
Tom Colicchio
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Recipes tell you nothing. Learning techniques is the key.
Tom Colicchio
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Men with shaved heads are always better. Just ask my wife.
Tom Colicchio