On Gordon Ramsay, Mario Batali says, "He's a good yeller." Watch the video to find out what our favorite red-headed, Crocs-wearing, seasonally eating chef had to say about hot heads prevailing in the kitchen.
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Celebrity chef Mario Batali’s recent remarks comparing bankers to “Stalin or Hitler and the evil guys” have landed him in hot pappardelle with the clientele of some of his high-end restaurants.

While participating on a Time Magazine Person of the Year panel along with NBC anchor Brian Williams, comedian Seth Meyers and taxpayer advocate Grover Norquist, Batali was asked by the moderator, Time's managing editor Richard Stengel who he would choose for that distinction.

After citing his admiration for Steve Jobs and food activist Michael Pollan, Batali went on to condemn the banking industry for what he characterized as their negative effect on a global scale saying, "So the ways the bankers have kind of toppled the way money is distributed and taken most of it into their hands is as good as Stalin or Hitler and the evil guys. They’re not heroes, they're just people that had a really huge effect on the way the world is operating."
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"I will never say, 'That's it! We're perfect!'" ever-exuberant chef and restaurateur Mario Batali tells CNN Money. "The first day you think you're done as a chef, you might as well write 'a*****e' across your forehead."

Previously: Scorpacciata – Mario Batali explains it all and Batali in Italian food fight? Not quite.

After opening its doors last year, Eataly has become Manhattan’s newest attraction for Italian food fanatics. However, the gleaming marketplace hasn’t left New York’s historic Little Italy district with empty tables. Both Italian pasta havens are known for serving up authentic Italian food, but the different dining experiences keeps the dough rolling for everyone.

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Top Chef's Tom Colicchio spoke to Congress on behalf of school lunch reform - also a pet issue of Chef Alice Waters.

Chef Nathalie Dupree is running for the South Carolina U.S. Senate seat.

Chef Rick Moonen is speaking out against the FDA's potential approval of genetically modified salmon.

Chefs are a notoriously opinionated, outspoken lot. Do you care what they have to say on issues other than cooking?

Read our series Chefs with Issues to see what some of your favorite toques have to say about childhood obesity, the importance of understanding where your food comes from and why GMO salmon might threaten our aquacultures.

Editor's note: all week, CNN Newsroom, Rick's List and Eatocracy are teaming up to take a look the effects our dining choices have on our minds, bodies and wallets. Tune into CNN Newsroom daily from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. ET for on-air coverage and join in the discussion here on Eatocracy. ALL COVERAGE

Jessica Yellin is a CNN national political correspondent based in Washington, D.C.

Jennifer Rubell might be the world’s first vegetable butcher.

She slices and dices vegetables, shares cooking tips and generally promotes vegetable consumption at Eataly, celebrity Chef Mario Batali's new Italian food emporium in New York City. Catch her during the noon bustle and you’ll hear her extol the virtues of celery root, watermelon radish, or baby beets and as she chops to customers specifications advising them, "Toss with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Fantastic!"

"In the vegetable butcher area, we try not to give people recipes; we try to give people an approach to cooking," says Rubell.

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Scorpacciata is a term that means consuming large amounts of a particular local ingredient while it's in season. It's a good way to eat, and it's a word we love to use 'round these parts.

We asked Chef Mario Batali - an active practitioner of this philosophy - to explain why eating locally is in such great taste.

And seriously, we could just sit there and listen to him pronounce "scorpacciata" all darned day long.
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Opening an audaciously expensive 40,000+ square foot Italian food hall in the middle of dicey economic times might seem like a load of bologna, but orange-Croc'd celebrity chef Mario Batali is taking a gamble on New Yorkers' obsession with all things edible.

Batali tells CNN, "The real bet is not whether the restaurants will draw people, because they will. The real bet is how much of the percentage of the business is going to be retail grocery store? For it to really work, it has to be at least fifty percent...the restaurants are dressing for the retail."

CNN Money has the FULL STORY

Previously - Who taught Mario Batali to love food and what's his food for love?

Now that you've nabbed that omnivorous or veggie hottie, what do you feed him or her to seal the deal?

We turned to the chef behind some pretty swoon-inducing food during the Mario Batali Foundation's T-Bones & Tequila Event at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen ask asked him about devising a dinner date d'amour.

Previously – Batali talks more about food love

A couple of weeks ago, we asked via iReport for your stories of that person, place, book, restaurant or dish that made you sit up and start to see food as more than just a three times a day chore. You eat every day, and you've got a story to share.

Every so often, we're sharing the most hunger-inducing and heartfelt ones right 'chere.

You may recognize the gentleman in the video below from a little thing called the Food Network. Don't have cable? How about cookbooks like 'Molto Italiano,' 'Simple Italian Food: Recipes from My Two Villages' and 'Mario Tailgates NASCAR Style' or restaurants like New York City's Babbo, Esca, Lupa and Otto, Las Vegas' B&B Ristorante and Carnevino or Los Angeles' Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza? Not ringing a bell? Even the charitable Mario Batali Foundation or series of brightly hued cookware?

Okay, he's the red-headed dude in the omnipresent orange Crocs, star of the upcoming film 'Bitter Feast' and we managed to grab a few minutes with him at the Mario Batali Foundation's T-Bones & Tequila Event at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. Consider this clip an appetizer.
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