Lidia Bastianich Quotes

A recipe is not an exact formula, but it does need a certain structure. When the bones are right, you can dress it in many ways.

I would try doing a dish 30 different ways.

Everything I do, I do on the principle of Russian borscht. You can throw everything into it beets, carrots, cabbage, onions, everything you want. What's important is the result, the taste of the borscht.

I have an imagination that will go in any direction it is prodded. I pride myself on being able to become enthusiastic about anything: If you tell me to write a screenplay about cucumber farms, I'll swallow hard, and in 48 hours, I'll be in love with cucumber farms.

All my collaborators unilaterally said that I need to just stay on one idea for longer. And of course I understand that. I like to switch gears a lot, and I like this kind of sloppy attitude.

I've done a good job of not putting myself in a box, being able to transform, and not being scared to try new things.

That's the thing, I've got so many ways to go, even striking there's so many ways to go. I proved that.

I go to each job and open my little briefcase up, and I take out the things that I have or I know. It might be a Swiss army knife, a quart of milk and a ruler. That might be all I can bring to it, but that's what I have.

I feel, as an actor, you should be in a position to mould yourself into different characters and should have the ability to change.

My favorite way to cook is to look in my cabinets and see what I have. That's the most fun. 'I don't have tomatoes, but I have this chili-garlic sauce from the Asian grocery store. Let's throw that in there and see how it affects my beef barley soup!'

I feel no matter who I'm going against that I can get open in a number of ways.

The best strategy relies upon an unlimited set of responses.

I have no style, because I change each time . . . each day I play differently. Today I play differently than yesterday.

For me, something that's been always really important to me, that's also really served me well in hindsight, is doing different things, trying to cross different genres, and dipping my toes into comedy and drama and action here and there. Fortunately, as I've been working, the industry has also changed where you're able to dip your toes into different mediums, where it's not just independent film and studio film, but now you've got TV, and you're able to do all these different things. For me, it's just a matter of continually pushing myself and challenging myself.

I think it's because I'm unpredictable. I view every situation, every race, and every candidate differently I try not to rely on something that worked before.

Man must become comfortable in flowing from one role to another, one set of values to another, one life to another. Men must be free from boundaries, patterns and consistencies in order to be free to think, feel and create in new ways. Men have admired Prometheus and Mars too long; our God must become Proteus.

I like to dip in and out of all sorts of different things. God, if I was asked to be in a show, like a real show, I would be so up for doing that.

Any tool should be useful in the expected way, but a truly great tool lends itself to uses you never expected.

I think that's a really cool thing about my line. There are so many sets, but you can literally mix and match everything with everything.

When one has reached maturity in this art, one will have the formless form. It is like the dissolving or thawing [of] ice into water that can shape itself to any structure. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, one can fit in with any style.

Jazz is an octopus. It will take whatever it can use and it will work with it.

If you get a certain amount of notoriety for doing something, and you can stick to that type of project for the rest of your life and make a decent living, I think you still have a responsibility to stretch. Flexibility is what keeps you alive.

Cooking is the art of adjustment.

Specialization is for insects.

I can do something with almost anything I see. Everything is still interesting to me.