What Celebrities Talk About When They Talk About Food - NYTimes ...

For this week?s Food & Drink Issue,? you can read about the utterly obsessive food habits of Gayle King, Al Michaels, Bruce Ratner and Wendy Williams. Here you can discover celebrities? quirky, wholesome or unusually contemplative?food preferences.

THE ODDBALLS

Daniel Libeskind, architect: ?In the morning, I have cereal or toast with jam. Or some blueberries. I never eat any lunch. I know it may not be the healthiest way to be. It?s usually late when we finish work at the studio ? 9 o?clock, 10 o?clock ? and my wife still cooks a three-course meal. It?s kind of a strange pattern, but we often eat very, very late.?

Stevie Johnson, N.F.L. player, Buffalo Bills: ?I say I?m like a fat skinny kid, man. I?m like the fattest skinny person. If I?m getting a chicken breast, I get two. I?m always going back for seconds. I clear off my plate. You don?t have to eat everything that?s on your plate, but I end up doing it anyway. I gotta practice and run around, so I don?t just sit around with all this food in my stomach. I get big servings.?

T.I., rapper and author, ?Trouble & Triumph: A Novel of Power and Beauty?: ?I have a taste for Benihana?s Japanese fried rice over the hibachi. I once ate that about four or five days a week for about three weeks. It tastes real. A lot of garlic, butter and sauces. Get some shrimp and stuff in there, man ? awesome!?

THE HEALTH NUTS

Alice Cooper, rock star: ?After a show, there?s always pizza, and unfortunately it?s the easiest thing to get when you?re in Wichita at midnight. So we have catering, but I find that now, when I?m going to get on a bus or plane and drive or fly to the next place, I have Lean Cuisine. I?ll just have something really light. If you eat four or five pieces of pizza before you go to sleep, you?re going to start gaining weight. After a while, you just say: ?Really? Pizza? Again?? ?

Sirio Maccioni, restaurateur and author, ?A Table at Le Cirque?: ?The doctors now tell me to eat fish, fish, fish, so I eat fish soup. We have very good fish. Flounder is one of our specials. And sole. At Le Cirque, even during the summer, we always have steak, but the doctor only lets met eat steak once a week. I try to find a way to lose weight. I believe that it?s wrong to get old. What can I tell you? I really try to follow a diet. I hate to get old, and I hate everything that goes with that. For the moment, I?m doing really well, but unfortunately, I?m 80 years old, and I know how to count.?

Padma Lakshmi, Top Chef host and cookbook author: ?I don?t believe in cleanses, and I don?t believe in deprivation. I believe in eating the flavors you love in a more healthy way. If you really love chipotle-smoked beef, that?s fantastic. I just would advise a girlfriend to have a chipotle-rubbed fish. I know how to eat healthy. Sometimes I want to eat a big, fat plate of carbonara, and as long as I go boxing, I do.?

Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University?s Earth Institute: ?My life has been divided in two. I was a pretty heavy hamburger eater until sometime around age 40, and then I decided it probably wasn?t the greatest approach for health. I?m not a purist on this ? this is a personal taste ? but nudging the world away from too much red-meat consumption, especially with the way it?s grown in feedlots, there?s a very heavy environmental impact. It combines with a health impact, and we really ought to take note of it.?

THE PHILOSOPHERS

Deepak Chopra, author, ?God: A Story of Revelation?: ?In general, I want to have seven colors of the rainbow. The seven colors of the rainbow are very important because they reflect phytochemicals, which are the most intelligent micronutrients that we know the pharmaceutical benefits of. Phytochemicals are actually chemicals derived from the energy of sun. They?re anti-inflammatory; they?re anti-carcinogenic. I?ve been a lifelong student of how nutrition affects our body physiologically, but also pharmacologically and even psychologically, because moods are influenced by food. That?s why we use taste metaphors: sweet love, sour grapes, bitter experience, pungent remarks, astringent humor and salt of the earth, etc. I think even the consciousness of the chef, the consciousness of the people you?re with and the attitude to food influences everything about food.?

Junot D?az, author, ?This Is How You Lose Her?: ?I would call eating the most human rhythm of learning how to take and accept generosity. That?s really what someone?s doing when they?re cooking for you: They?re extending generosity. Then there?s the other difficult lesson of being human: Learning how to share. Neither of these things is encouraged in our culture. I mean, c?mon, we?re rabid capitalists. I think we often forget that getting together and breaking bread isn?t just the delight in food. There?s a lot of importance: about hospitality, about respect and about, I think, the social values that play themselves out in the drama we call eating.?

Tony Bennett, singer, philanthropist and author, ?Life Is a Gift?: ?There was only one great president, as far as I?m concerned, and his name was Abraham Lincoln. Just before he was assassinated, he came up with a plan: He wanted to feed the world. He didn?t want to give them weapons; he just wanted to feed everybody. He said, ?If we feed everybody, then we?ll eliminate poverty and there won?t be any wars.? That?s my great dream: that somehow or other our great country will do the same thing, just feed everybody in the world. It?ll slow down all the wars.?

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 17, 2012

An earlier version misstated the age of Sirio Maccioni. He is 80, not 79.

Source: http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/what-celebrities-talk-about-when-they-talk-about-food/

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