Lessons from the Chefs

I have been gone, dear Reader. I have been with the Chefs. I have been following them, organizing them, studying them. And I have learned a few things that I think I need to share with you now.

I am back to communicating for myself again. By the way, these are not in order of importance.

1. Going out to dinner with the chefs is SUBLIME. They are FUN. They CHOOSE! They ORDER ONE OF EVERYTHING THAT LOOKS INTERESTING! They are not picky. They sniff, they devour. They get excited, they squeal with joy. I LOVE EATING OUT WITH the chefs. My favorites to eat with from this trip were: Chef Aira Piva and Chef Maurizio Lazzarin. Bless you for going veggie with me.

2. Looks matter. Pay attention to detail. Make things beautiful.

3. Have you ever seen anyone really love what they do? Chefs are happy when they are cooking. Giorgio Giambelli was my Italian mother. Walter Potenza too. They love feeding people.

4. An invitation into the kitchen is the highest compliment. Thank you, Chefs, for letting me in!

5. Take pride in your uniform. My chefs Salvatore Bianco and Pasquale Palamaro even wore their chef jackets to a RADIO interview. I loved that!

6. Communication is fundamental. The briefing meeting with the staff. The photos of the food. The website. The press materials. The conversation with the people eating the food. Yes, even food must be communicated to have a rich and full effect.

7. If you use the products from your territory, the food is authentic. I learned that from an interview with Marco Sacco. He also encourages you to use a wooden spoon when you make risotto. He says the grains of rice don't like the sound of metal on metal any more than we do (that was during a master class he taught).

8. You can't make good food with bad ingredients. I learned that from Igor Macchia.

9. You can strip a food down to it's elements and discover flavors you never knew were hidden in there. I learned that from Niko Romito and his Artichoke upon Artichoke experiment. I also learned from him that making something simple can take a lot of time.

10. I learned that food should be full of surprises. That was from Maurizio and Sandro Serva. They surprised me with an egg inside an artichoke. Blew me away. Rosanna Marziale has surprises coming out of balls of buffalo mozzarella (campana dop!!).

11. Good chefs plan ahead. They are organized. They are calm. I noticed this in Lionello Cera. Enrico Bartolini does not cook with a watch, he told me. Instead, he moves with magnetic calm. You just want to follow him.

13. I learned from Claudio Sadler that rice al dente is preferable to overcooked. That goes for pasta too.

14. Chefs love to hang out together. Their restaurants may be competitors, but that doesn't change anything. They eat each other's food. They visit each other. They cheer each other on. There is comraderie there. I loved hanging around with the women Michelin-starred Chefs: Rosanna Marziale, Patrizia Di Benedetto, Antonella Ricci (Ok, Vinod, too, even if he is not a girl), Marianna Vitale. You girls rock!

Makes you want to be a chef. And if you can't do that, at least document them in some way.