Pizzeria Mozza. - Mozza at home: more than 150 crowd-pleasing recipes for relaxed, family-style entertaining

Owning four busy Mozza restaurants in Southern California and two in Singapore, its surprisingly easy to forget how and why I started down the path that led me here so many years ago: because of the immense pleasure I get from cooking a meal and serving it to family and friends. For many years while running La Brea Bakery and the pastry kitchen at Campanile, my first restaurant, which I opened in 1989 with my then husband, I didnt cook at allother than foods, such as pasta with butter, for my kids dinner. But that changed about fifteen years ago, when I started spending time in Italy. From the very first summer that I rented an apartment in a small medieval hill town on the Umbria-Tuscany border where I now own a home, my being situated in Umbria and the bounty of the area turned out to be the perfect storm that blew me back into the kitchen.

With local ingredients including cherry tomatoes, red torpedo onions, and fragrant basil at the height of their season; regional specialties such as chickpeas, lentils, and sheeps milk cheese; long summer days when it stays light until almost ten oclock; and an endless cast of hungry friends who arrived weekly from Los Angeles and rented apartments and houses in the same town, I started cooking againmore than I ever had. And despite the fact that I had rented a house with a tiny kitchen stocked with aluminum pots and pans and one dull knife, I was reminded of how much I love preparing food for family and friendsold and new.

My friend Suzanne Tracht, also a chef and restaurant owner, of the Los Angeles chophouse Jar, had rented an apartment right on the piazza, in the center of town. During the day, Suzanne and I and other friends would explore the surrounding areas, discovering cheese makers, farm stands, outdoor markets that popped up in different towns on different days, and little artisan shops that sold pastas, oils, vinegars, and other condiments. We were like kids in candy stores. We bought everything that delighted us, brought it home to our inadequate kitchens, and we cooked. And cooked and cooked.

While we were preparing the food, the guys and the kids would set up a long table outside, essentially in the piazza (in fact, an indoor/outdoor restaurant now exists in the very space where we once put our table). Suzanne and I would put out platters of food as they were done, preparations that showcased all the wonderful ingredients we found locally: balsamic-glazed onions with fresh bay leaves, slow-roasted tomatoes on the vine, radicchio salad, hand-sliced local prosciutto, and grilled breadsimple, rustic foods that could be prepared ahead of time, so we could sit down and enjoy the meal with everyone else. Soon, we discovered we loved our own private restaurant as much as going out, and we began to entertain in this way night after night and, after I bought a home in the town, year after year.

Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles, I had a patio built, including an outdoor fireplace to cook in and a wisteria-covered pergola under which I put a long dining table. And I began to entertain not just in Italy in the summertime, but on a year-round basis. Over the last fifteen years, I have found myself saying countless times, Lets have it at my house. Ive hosted regular weeknight get-togethers with close friends, baby showers for Mozza staff members, birthday parties, charity events, and even a couple of weddings.

This book is a collection of recipes that reflects the style I developed in cooking those meals. There are no intricately plated dishes here and nothing that needs to be served piping hot. Antipasti, whether Marinated Olives with Fresh Pecorino, Pickled Vegetables, or Pimento Cheese with Celery Sticks, can be put out while youre assembling the rest of the meal. Salads, built of sturdy lettuces such as radicchio and other chicories, Little Gem, and hearts of romaine that dont wilt quickly, are piled high in large, wide-mouthed bowls. The simple preparations of side dishes such as Slow-Roasted Roma Tomatoes with Garlic and Thyme, Corn on the Cob with Chile Butter, Roasted Carrots with Chickpeas and Cumin, and Roasted Asparagus with Herb Vinaigrette take advantage of the natural flavor of seasonal vegetables. And main dishes are kept simple, either marinated and grilled, as is the case with Grilled Lamb Shoulder Chops with Mint Yogurt Sauce and Sicilian Swordfish Spiedini, or as with Daves Oven-Roasted Grouper with Spicy Tomato Marmalade and Tahini, and are cooked in the oven and served in the pans in which they were cooked.

Im not saying these are thirty-minute meals, because theyre not. Home cooking is often slow cooking. There is no shortcut to braising an oxtail, but it can be done in advance, and the oven does all the work for you while youre making side dishes or taking a shower. Eggplant Lasagne, made with store-bought noodles, can be assembled hours ahead and put in the oven just in time for dinner. And all of the desserts can be made many hours prior to serving time. Or maybe not at all. When I dont have time to prepare dessert, I pass ice cream bars around after dinner, or toss a selection of artisan candy bars into the center of the table. Friends break them up and share. Its like breaking breadonly sweeter. That, for me, is what entertaining is all about.