Fabio Viviani - Fabios Italian Kitchen

Copyright 2013 VF Legacy, LLC

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 1500 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

Print edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-1277-0

eBook Edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-0544-4

Cover design by Laura Klynstra

Book design by Shubhani Sarkar

Photographs (interior and cover) by Matt Armendariz

Prop styling by Robin Tucker

Photographs of the authors mother on the set of Chow Ciao! with Fabio Viviani: courtesy of Yahoo!/Chow Ciao! with Fabio Viviani

First eBook Edition

Original trade paperback edition printed in the United States of America.

www.HyperionBooks.com

Although recipe photographs in the original print book alternate between preceding and following the recipes themselves, please note that for clarity all recipe photographs in this ebook editon have been placed to follow their corresponding recipes.

One of the first things I learned to cook was an apple sponge cake. My great-grandma taught me how to do it after I set her on fire, when I was five and she was eighty-seven. Ill tell you the fire story later in this book. I have a lot of storiessome funny and some that still make me cry today. Some will inspire you. Some will make people say, I will never have kids. But first, one other story about the apple cake: I once baked it for the Pope.

I had a lot of health problems as a kid. So when I was seven years old, my grandfather decided it would be a good idea to take me to Rome and get me blessed. I refused to leave the house without making not just one but two of these apple cakes, which my family called Fabios Cake, for the Pope. We arrived in the waiting room at the Vatican two hours ahead of time, and in those two hours, I got so bored I ate one whole cake by myself. The other thing I did to pass the time was yell a lot, very loudly. Seeing that I was causing trouble, various Cardinals came over to say hello and try to calm me down. When they bent down to talk to me, I tried to knock off their hats. My mom was not so happy about either the yelling or the hats.

By the time the blessing mass finally started, I was out of patience, and as soon as I saw the Pope I started to scream as loud as I could, I have a cake for you! Seeing all the chaos, the Pope came over to me and for ten whole minuteslonger than my family had ever seen beforeI behaved. I gave him the cake, he gave me a hug and a blessing, and then, to thank him, I jumped up and yelled Tu hai un bel cappello! which basically means Nice hat, dude! Then I tried to whack off his tall ceremonial hat. Somehow he managed to hold it on with one hand while holding my cake in the other, and my parents got me out of there fast.

What can I say? Thats the kind of kid I was. I come from a passionate familyafter all, were Italian. And a big part of being a passionate Italian is being passionate about food. It doesnt matter where youre from in Italy. It doesnt matter if youre a lawyer or a janitor: Food is your passion! My family has some very hardworking people, and my family has some lazy people, but all of them are crazy about food. The funny part is that theyre passionate about something that we never really had. We were very poor and we didnt always have enough to eat, but it didnt matter: Even just a piece of bread on the family table was a gigantic celebration.

Just because we didnt have much didnt mean we had no tradition. I learned at a very young age that where food is concerned, things have to be done in a certain way. For example, in my family, roasted chicken is made with rosemary, sage, and garlic. If you have a chicken and you have sage and you have garlic but there is no rosemary around, then you cant do a roasted chicken! You have to do something else and everybody knows it. Its tradition, and people get very animated about it.

So for me, this isnt just a cookbook. I mean, it is a cookbook, otherwise youll say, Fabio, youre crazy! Its a cookbook! But its also twenty-six years of things that happened in my house that mostly revolved around food. Its a celebration of the biggest part of my life so farmy family. If you want to get a really great meal in Italy, you have to go to somebodys house. Once youre there, youre going to experience amazing food made with simple ingredients. So one of the things I emphasize in this book is getting back to basics and enjoying little thingsthe small pleasures. Its incredible what you can do with an apple or an egg, for example, and tomato sauce is just tomatoes, olive oil, and garlic. Thats it. There is no bacon. There is no onion. Its three ingredients that match perfectly, old world and old school.

This is how I cook in my own home, for comfort through the day and so that everybody who comes there feels welcome. I make the dishes in this book, respecting Italian tradition, and I try very hard not to get too caught up in new kitchen technology.

Thats also why youll be able to cook 100 percent of the recipes in this book in your own kitchen. Actually, there are two reasons: First, because I say so; and second, because my food is not pretentious. My food is not complicated. My food is meant to be made and eaten. Thats it. Its not meant to impress, its meant to feed people. Im not putting this book in front of you because I want you to become a three-star chef. I just want to make sure that when youre done cooking, every person you know will say, Thats a great freaking dish. Delicious! I wish I knew how to do it.

Having said that, please understand that this is not a book of Five-Minute Fixes by Fabio. Some of the dishes take some time, and youll want to pour a glass of wine and a take deep breath before you make them. They arent hard, but you have to create momentum around these recipes. If something needs to braise for three hours, go on with your life while its cooking! Do the laundry, get another glass of wine, chase your dog, plant some tomatoes. Its not going to cook faster if you look at it. If you want to be lazy, avoid those recipesyou still have about 140 to choose from. But remember: There are people, maybe even people in your family, who enjoy braising something for six hours (and will probably also keep you company while you cook).

I hope you really enjoy these recipes. And as youre sipping a fantastic soup or deciding to make a risotto or pasta the way my grandmother made it, think about me as a little Italian boy everyone called Fabiolino, eating these same dishes as I struggled and learned and grew up. The way my family cooks is not the only way, of course, but its the only way