24 Tips for Cooking in Authentic Italian Style (7-12)

Tip 7 - Share the Experience

Hospitality. Whether it's the cooking itself or simply the meals you create, Italian cooking is all about family style. Get your friends together and rock it: Community Starts in the Kitchen.

Tip 8 - Don’t Be Afraid and Don’t Apologize

Get into the mindset of an Italian mother making Sunday dinner for not only her husband and her children, but everyone else that she and they bumped into on Saturday. You've got to fearlessly cook fifteen unique dishes, and after that amount of work no one better complain! Plus, it's a little known fact that almost any dish can be saved from being a complete disaster. Julia Child once said "never apologize," and she was right.

Tip 9 - Cook the Dish 1,000 Times
The greatest thing about Italian dishes is that they are easy to make and can be incorporated into daily life. Until I lived in Italy I didn't realize that it's easier to make a healthy pasta dish from scratch than it is to make a box of instant macaroni and cheese. Just think about how good your signature dish will be when you've cooked it 1,000 times!

Tip 10 - Drink While You’re Cooking
I’m not sure if this is Italian, but it’s something I do while cooking and it seems to enhance the entire experience.

Tip 11 - Serve Lots of Good but Inexpensive Wine
A bartender in San Francisco once told me, You can't live the dream every day. Accordingly, you can't drink fine wine every day, nor should you. Italians drink vino sfuso, or table wine, and in America the closet thing we have is box wine and jug wine. If you're having a dinner party, break out the jug wine and get the party started!

Tip 12 - Stock Olive Oil
The next time you see olive oil on sale, buy six bottles. Nothing forces you to make instant mac n cheese like running out of olive oil. Further, it shouldn't be the good stuff. Good olive oil should only be used on very special dishes. It is used to finish a dish, not for cooking.

Italian cooking tips 13-18 are coming up this Friday.