Stanley Tucci > Quotes

“when my parents are no longer alive, I will always be able to put their teachings and all the love they gave me into a bowl and present it to someone who sadly will never have had the good fortune of knowing them. But by eating that food, they will come to know them, if even just a little.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“If you find that thing you love, it doesn't necessarily matter whether you do it well or not-you just need to do it.”
― Stanley Tucci

“(Let’s face it, if men had to give birth, there would probably be only a total of about 47 people living on the face of the earth today as opposed to billions, and abortion clinics would be just another department in Walmart alongside auto parts, golf gear, and firearms.)”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“Losing a beloved family heirloom is a very real personal loss; they're things that cannot ever be replaced or re-created. But perhaps the most precious heirlooms are family recipes. Like a physical heirloom, they remind us from whom and where we came and give others, in a bite, the story of another people from another place and another time. Yet unlike a lost physical heirloom, recipes are a part of our history that can be re-created over and over again. The only way they can be lost is if we choose to lose them.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“I have chosen to write about this painfully ironic experience because my illness and the brutal side effects of the treatment caused me to realize that food was not just a huge part of my life; it basically was my life. Food at once grounded me and took me to other places. It comforted me and challenged me. It was part of the fabric that made up my creative self and my domestic self. It allowed me to express my love for the people I love and make connections with new people I might come to love.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“It is said that Negronis are like breasts: “One is not enough, two is perfect, and three is just too many.” Today I am tempted to see what happens if I drink four.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“When fear grips the soul, it's amazing what one can achieve.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“That fucking timpano...”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“I don’t know why, but we Americans feel little obligation to preserve what once was because we choose to see it as less than what is or what could be. Like children and adolescents, we have not yet learned that the present isn’t the only thing.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“Tragically it is indeed the goddamn gluten that makes the pasta taste so good”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“I am hardly saying anything new by stating that our links to what we eat have practically disappeared beneath sheets of plastic wrap. But what are also disappearing are the wonderful, vital human connections we’re able to make when we buy something we love to eat from someone who loves to sell it, who bought it from someone who loves to grow, catch, or raise it. Whether we know it or not, great comfort is found in these relationships, and they are very much a part of what solidifies a community.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“And anyway one is never drinking alone. Someone else is always drinking somewhere.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“Now, I am not one who is necessarily drawn to the Michelin star. Often I find that many of the restaurants that have earned this coveted award are a bit fussy, to say the least, and I’ve left a few of them completely famished, as I have never found pretentiousness very filling.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“I don’t know why, but I have always been drawn to northern climes much more so than to warmer parts of the world. I find the redundant sunshine of Southern California mind numbing, the humidity of the American South loathsome, and the tropics make me want to curl up into a ball and die before I drown in my own sweat.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“To me, eating well is not just about what tastes good but about the connections that are made through the food itself. I am hardly saying anything new by stating that our links to what we eat have practically disappeared beneath sheets of plastic wrap. But what are also disappearing are the wonderful, vital human connections we’re able to make when we buy something we love to eat from someone who loves to sell it, who bought it from someone who loves to grow, catch, or raise it. Whether we know it or not, great comfort is found in these relationships, and they are very much a part of what solidifies a community.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“In so many attempts to save time, so many other things are wasted.”
― Stanley Tucci, What I Ate in One Year

“But perhaps the most precious heirlooms are family recipes. Like a physical heirloom, they remind us from whom and where we came and give others, in a bite, the story of another people from another place and another time.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“No, for some unknown reason, I feel more at home in the Italian Alps than I do in the brutal heat of Puglia. I like brisk autumns, snowy winters, rainy springs, and temperate summers. The change of seasons allows for a change in one’s wardrobe (I’m sartorially obsessed) and, most important, one’s diet. A boeuf carbonnade tastes a thousand times better in the last days of autumn than when it’s eighty degrees and the sun is shining. An Armagnac is the perfect complement to a snowy night by the fire but not to an August beach outing, just as a crisp Orvieto served with spaghetti con vongole is ideal “al fresco” on a sunny summer afternoon but not nearly as satisfying when eaten indoors on a cold winter’s night. One thing feeds the other. (Pun intended.) So a visit to Iceland to escape the gloom of what is known in London as “winter” was an exciting prospect. However, my greatest concern, as you can probably guess, if you’re still reading this, was the food.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“Yes, hope is hard to find, but it can often be found at the table. And tables are easy to build.”
― Stanley Tucci, What I Ate in One Year

“It allows for free personal expression like painting, musical composition or writing and yet fulfils a most practical need: the need to eat. Edible art. What could be better?”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“However, food is just there. A beautiful, varied thing waiting to bring satiety and solace and offer hope while death and arithmetic haunt me.”
― Stanley Tucci, What I Ate in One Year

“Eating a simple dish gives one clarity. Pasta with butter and cheese laughs in the face of our complex lives.”
― Stanley Tucci, What I Ate in One Year

“Home-cooked food strengthens our bonds when we are together, keeps us connected when we are apart, and sustains the memory of us when we have passed away.”
― Stanley Tucci, What I Ate in One Year

“I am a soup lover. To me soup may be the greatest culinary invention. It can be made with two ingredients or two hundred twenty-two ingredients. It can be served hot or cold. It can be cooked fast or slow. It can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It can be vegetarian, vegan, paleo, pescatarian, or carnivorian. It can be simple or complex. It comforts, it soothes, it refreshes, and it restores. Soup is life in a pot.”
― Stanley Tucci, What I Ate in One Year

“At any rate, those of us lucky enough to be present swelled with pride as the cloudy purple liquor was carried upstairs to the table in its decanter, poured into juice glasses, toasted with, and drunk heartily. Was it the best wine in the world? No. Was it the worst? Very close. Did it matter? No. It was part of my grandfather, whom we adored, and that made it the sweetest liquid ever to pass our lips.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“Tomato Salad — SERVES 4 — 8 small ripe tomatoes (quartered or halved, depending upon their size) 1 garlic clove, halved A glug of EVOO A small handful of basil leaves, torn A splash of red wine vinegar (optional) Coarse salt Place the cut tomatoes in a bowl with the garlic, olive oil, basil, and vinegar, if using. Toss. Salt a few minutes before serving. (Adding it too soon will draw the water out of the tomatoes and dilute the dish.)”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“Others argue that the lack of salt in Florentine bread is because unsalted bread lasts longer, or it’s the result of an innate or inherited Tuscan parsimony stemming from a time when Italy was divided into city-states and wars were fought over necessary and coveted commodities such as salt, which was very dear. When we lived in Florence we never could get used to the unsalted bread, which we found dry and tasteless. I must confess that sometimes I think the best bread in Italy is in France.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“The third is that we die and find that death is a table resplendently set with an extraordinary meal for us and all those we've ever loved to share for the rest of eternity”
― Stanley Tucci, What I Ate in One Year

“Edible”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

“To that point, I remember when visiting my parents’ years later, I happened to catch an old episode of The French Chef. Because my interest in food had grown, I watched it with even more attentiveness than I had when I was young. But on this particular occasion, I was taken aback by my reaction when Mrs Child bid US her ubiquitous farewell, ‘This is Julia Child, bon appétit!’ My eyes suddenly welded up and I had to stop myself from crying: why was I suddenly experiencing a powerful rush of emotion because a black and white moving image of a chef was saying goodbye to me in French? After a few moments, I realised that I was moved by Mrs Child not only because she brought back happy boyhood memories of spending time with my mom but also because Julia herself was so genuinely happy to be doing what she was doing. I saw in that moment the embodiment of what I, and so many of us, aspire to. To spend your life doing what you love and doing it well. To achieve this is a rare thing, but for those who can, real joy is theirs, as is the ability to bring that joy to others through their chosen vacation.”
― Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food