Italian Home Cooking and Entertaining

I did it! Finally I have a place where I can blog about the things I love in life.

I love cooking and I love entertaining. For me one of the best things in life is to have people over for dinner and watching them enjoy the evening. Enjoying the food, of course, but also the atmosphere I created. Over two centuries ago Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said:”You are responsible for your guests’ happiness from the moment they enter your door, until they leave your house”.
This is my golden rule. I have traveled a lot and I lived in three different countries: Italy, of course, for over thirty years, England, and lately the U.S. Well, wherever I have been I found people who love spending an evening with friends enjoying food and conversation. If you put your heart in what you do people feel it. And I am proud to say that my way of entertaining has actually converted several workaholic professionals to the Brillat-Savarin philosophy. And they love it. All of a sudden they started having guests over.   Even if the space in their home was limited and they never cooked or entertained before. My former partner, for instance, original co-founder of Essentials for Entertaining, a bright and sensitive girl who used to work day and night and had never cooked a dish in her life, started asking me recipes. How do you make this pizza dough, how about that tomato sauce? She did not just ask. She put the suggestions into practice. She started cooking and having guests for dinner “stealing” time to her exciting career. 
Yes entertaining is contagious.
For me cooking is like meditation. It makes me feel good. I forget about everything else and just lose myself in the sensual smells of my childhood.
Here I will pass on some of the basic tidbits of cooking as I learned them back in Italy (yes, pizza and pasta, but probably you will find also some recipes and ideas that will surprise you), not as a chef would do, but just as a person who loves food and values friendship.