One of my favorites is chilaquiles. It's corn tortilla chips in a simple, brothy tomato sauce with a little chile for heat. It's wonderfully homey. It has irresistible crispy bits and I love to eat it. And you can play around with it - add chicken, sliced red onions, or all these different things that can easily dress it up.

Many of the things the slow food people honor were innovations within historical times. Somebody had to be the first European to eat a tomato.

I love judging food by its smell and feel and taste. The healthiest tomato isn't always the perfect one that's been covered in pesticides.

My greatest strength is common sense. I'm really a standard brand - like Campbell's tomato soup or Baker's chocolate.

I used to obsess on critical reactions to my films, and it's really not a healthy way to live your life, so my new take on it is simply, 'I hope people like it!' I'm not going to be looking at the tomato meter for at least a year! I was very lucky on '50/50' that most critics really liked it.

I feel old and vulnerable. I now realise that I knew nothing and know nothing, but back when my career was beginning, I thought I was a man when, in fact, I was a dewy-eyed boy who'd not seen an avocado or eaten a tomato.

I don't care what anybody says: Nothing is better than a tomato you grow. There's something about it that's different than a tomato you can buy. It's a great thing.

One problem with globalisation is that bad ideas seem to travel faster than good ones; first there was smearing tomato ketchup on everything; then drinking sugar-soaked cocktails ('Cosmo'-politanism) instead of our traditional whisky soda, and now this idea that we should abandon the poor to their fate in order to protect their dignity.

I want to find a niche crop that we can market to the world. Why can't we have the Almost Heaven Tomato? It can be the next Vidalia Onion or Idaho potato.

When I was in kindergarten, I had one line in a little play. I said, I am Patrick Potato and this is my cousin, Mrs. Tomato, and I heard laughter. I wanted to be an actress from that moment on.

I happen to enjoy grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches.

I cook a lot of Italian food. Bucatini Pomodoro is my best: it's a fat spaghetti with tomato, olive oil, and reminds me of getting married in Italy.

I hate fussing about in the kitchen when I have people over to supper, so I make a rich beef stew cooked in wine with carrots, sundried tomato paste and chopped chorizo sausage.

I burn very easily, so if I forget sunscreen, I will be a tomato by the end of the day. I'm very big on sunscreen and hats. I grew up in Florida, and I love the beach, and I think it's healthy to get a little bit of color.

I want to go back to Brazil, get married, have lots of kids, and just be a couch tomato.

You know, when you get your first asparagus, or your first acorn squash, or your first really good tomato of the season, those are the moments that define the cook's year. I get more excited by that than anything else.

Koshari is a cozy pile of warm carbs - traditionally, cooked rice, lentils, macaroni, and chickpeas, all mixed together - smothered in perky tomato sauce and buried in fried shallots.

Once you know how to make koshari, youll never think twice about whether to save those last few scoops of rice or the half-cup tomato passata.

Stock up your pantry and your freezer with things that aren't perishable: Your favorite jar of tomato sauce that lists 'tomato' as the first ingredient, lots of grains, olive oils, vinegars, tomato pastes, onions, shallots. When you go to the store, you only have to pick up meats and produce.

It took me all my life to learn how to salt a tomato.