Italian Recipe Chatter

My wife and I had been renting apartments for the duration of our marriage until about a year ago when we managed to purchase our own home. The improvement projects and mortgage payments are stressful, of course, but anything beats dealing with incompetent landlords and sky-high rents. Now that we have a place to call our own, we’ve begun hosting dinner parties on a regular basis.

Knowing that our close friend and neighbor Brad and his wife Judith are both vegetarians, we like to shake up the main course on occasion. It’s much easier to prepare a meat-free entrée for everyone instead of a meat dish with vegetarian option. My wife’s vegetable lasagna recipe is a dinnertime staple anyway, but it’s especially useful for when we need to be accommodating toward our guests.

Fairly or not, French cooking is often considered to be the holy grail of ethnic cuisine. It seems that most professional chefs are trained in the classical French mode, and there’s no disputing the fact that French dishes are complex and difficult to execute. But how often does the average American sit down to enjoy a French meal? You almost never hear about the elusive beef bourguignon or escargot outside of fancy-schmancy restaurants.

Italian cuisine, on the other hand, is incredibly versatile. It has a populist element as opposed to the air of elitism surrounding French food. Italian cuisine can be remarkably simple with its foundation in succulent meats and saucy pasta. Still, perfecting a given Italian dish takes time and artistry. Best of all, practically any Italian fare you prepare will draw favorable reviews from children, husbands, wives and anyone else with a healthy appetite.

If you visit a restaurant that specializes in authentic Italian cuisine, you might be surprised to find a dearth of Americanized Italian food. Many restaurants in the New World make a mockery of genuine Italian cooking, dishing out massive portions of carbohydrate-rich food with little to balance it all out. In Italy, food is generally served in multiple courses, but the portions are much smaller.

And boy do Italians know how to make pasta sauce. A real Italian chef will typically offer two options: a red sauce and a white sauce. Marinara sauce features tomato as its main impetus and is does not include meat. An alfredo sauce will be anchored with cream, butter and parmesan, and it is almost always served over a bed of vegetables and lighter meats.