Let me tell you something my tour guests ask me all the time: "But how do you eat at home?
As if, behind closed doors, I were secretly bathing in ragù.
No.
Or rather: not always.
Here’s how it goes.
Not a doctrine, not a manifesto, just a handful of habits, assembled over time, like a plate made from what’s left in the fridge.
Before the knife, before the flame, there are the ingredients.
If they are good, they carry you. If they’re bad, they drag you down.
Seasonality is not a religion, but a useful compass.
Strawberries in December? No, thank you.
Oranges? Yes, even here.
One bends, but does not break.
Most pasta dishes or risottos use just a handful of ingredients. Don't overcomplicate things. Less is better.
Three ingredients, four at most.
Add a fifth, and you start explaining yourself.
Add a sixth, and you’re apologizing.
Italian cooking, the real one, counts on its fingers, and rarely runs out of them.
(Garlic? Yes. But softly, gently, almost with embarrassment.)
What lives perpetually in my refrigerator?
Lunch-savers food.
A few of them:
Bottarga: those cured roe of fish that Romans knew, that Sardinians perfected, that I deploy thus: spaghetti, garlic (cooked! sparingly!), fennel seeds, pistachios. My favorite lunch, bar none.
Anchovies: sharp, decisive. Bread, butter (or oil), and the story ends quickly, but well.
Cheese: two types minimum, three preferred, four not unusual. My cholesterol protests; it doesn’t know how good they are. Bread, a walnut, a herb: a meal appears, as if by accident.
You cook for others: admirable, generous, correct.
But also: cook for yourself.
Cook what your family dislikes (they needn't know).
No need to rush. No need to impress.
A pan, a glass of wine (singular, though who's counting?), a bit of music, nothing grand, but everything in place.
The onion receives my attention. Nothing else exists.
Therapy, some call it.
I call it Wednesday.
Buon appetito
Take a look at what’s going on during our cooking class in Parma. And if you don’t know how to make anolini and tortelli, you know where to find us ;)
I also put together a guide to enjoying San Luca the right way: how to walk it, when to go, and (crucially) where to stop and eat along the way.
That’s all for now.
Back to the kitchen.
Andrea
P.S. The garlic. Remember. Sparingly.
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