This June, I'll travel once again to the Food and Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen, Colorado. For many years, my dear friend Julia Child and I have teamed up to teach classes together at the event; for the past seven years, my daughter, Claudine, has been my cooking partner on stage.
My mom was a great cook and also a very creative cook.
Like anything, you don't force kids to cook. It just becomes part of life - have them be around it, keep them informed - talk about it. I try to relay my passion for it in these ways. The second you try to force anything on your own kid, they rebel.
I think for me, as far as cooking, some of it came naturally just from watching my dad. My dad was more of the cook than my mom was, so it's just handing it down from generation to generation. I just love to cook and have fun. And as performers, we love to cook, and we love to entertain people.
That was one thing my mama instilled in me: to be well trained in the kitchen. Growing up, I was always in the kitchen with her. You name it, I make it: red beans and rice, lasagna, chicken, pork. I am the queen of cooking.
Now that I'm a dad, I'm practicing what I call 'one- handed cooking,' because I've got something more important in my other arm. I'm whipping up lots of frittatas and omelets.
Baking is how you start kids at cooking in the kitchen.
I'm always looking for new ways to create flavorful veggie dishes for my family.
My mom is a really good cook. I didn't get the cooking gene, but she cooks this really amazing dinner every Christmas, and that's always really fun.
Preparing food is one of life's great joys, but a lot of times, parents ask their kids if they want to cook with them and then tell them to go peel a bag of potatoes. That's not cooking - that's working!
Every child should be taught to cook in school, not just talk about nutrition all day. Good food can be made in 15 minutes. This could be the first generation where the kids teach the parents.
My Italian granny and my mother made great spaghetti, but it wasn't a kind of southern Italian, Godfather-esque kind of thing - it was a wonderful, big mixing pot of all kinds of people - when you came home from school and your mum wasn't in, there were lots of people you could go to.
I don't know that I have a favorite meal. When I'm cooking I'm thinking about the person I'm feeding and I want to make them whatever they want. My husband's favorite meal is carbonara. I guess my favorite food is anything my mom makes. Because like anybody who loves their mother's cooking, if you try and make your mom's recipes, they never taste quite the same. And I don't know if that's because she's lying about what she's putting in there and just not telling me. Like when I turn my back, she's sneaking something in there. It just never seems to taste the same.
I never cooked at home - my father was the chef.
My favorite thing is when I go back and my mother cooks for me. Because it just throws me back the same flavor. And I try to modify things: I say, "Why don't you do this and that?" My mother is older, but she cooks a lot, and she doesn't want to change anything. She's a very good cook, and my grandmother was an amazing cook.
I was always a person on my mother's hip in the kitchen. My mom really wanted her kids at her side as much as possible, and she worked in restaurants for over fifty years. And my grandfather had ten children, and he grew and prepared most of the food. My grandmother, on my mother's side, was the family seamstress and the baker. So my mom, the eldest child, was always in the kitchen with my grandpa and I was always in the production and restaurant kitchens and our own kitchen with my mom. And it's just something that has always spoken to me.
I learned to cook from my mom. Most of what I ate growing up was Italian cooking.
My mother made soft polenta often, and as a child, I would watch her stir until she looked like her arm would fall off.
I cook at home all the time and really enjoy it. It's fun family time and we all chip in and help out. We do a lot with our outdoor grill, a lot of chicken or shrimp, and every meal includes veggies.
I love making dishes that my mother used to make.
I eat very well. I cook for my family every night. We eat a variety of things, including chicken, fish, pork, lentils, all veggies, pastas, and salads. You name it, we eat it - except salmon, which I find disgusting. Sorry, salmon.
I always knew that food and wine were vital, with my mother being Italian and a good cook.
One way I get my kids to try new things is by cooking with them.
I've always been very open about how my mother taught me to cook and how I'm delighted to share my family's recipes.
All the women in my family were superb cooks.
