Taste: The No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller

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We travel to Italy when the Lira was still used and his family lived there for a short time before returning to the USA for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. There are lots of gaps. We get the childhood in Katonah, New York (the son of a high-school art teacher, his grandparents emigrated to the US from Calabria), but little about his efforts to win an Equity card (maybe he was too poor to eat then). His two marriages are touched on only lightly (his first wife, Kathryn, died of cancer in 2009; his second – whom he met at her sister’s wedding, at George Clooney’s “gorgeous” house in Lake Como – is the literary agent, Felicity Blunt). There isn’t much… gossip, unless you count the (non) revelation that Marcello Mastroianni, with whom Tucci once had dinner, favoured a digestivo comprising half a shot of amaro and half a shot of Fernet-Branca. One by one, fill the bottles (with a ladle, via funnel) with the tomato juice and add a pinch of salt and a basil leaf to each. Unless my editor cut it, but the word definitely came to mind. There’s something very choreographed about the ritual of cooking.

I’ve made notes about food over the years, and I thought that maybe I would compile them into a book of observations and musings. It was suggested to me, by the publishers, that I write a memoir, and I thought, Well, is that right? Is that interesting? But they said to give it a try, so I did, and, as I started writing it, it started to make sense.Not only is this an autobiography but it’s a dip into history, cuisine of Italian-Americans and Italy, Stanley Tucci cooking, Stanley Tucci family and a glimpse into Stanley Tucci cookbook recipes. LOVED THIS! I cannot begin to explain how much I loved this book but put it this way, Taste was my starter, Stanley Tucci interview on The Travel Diaries was my main and I’m currently enjoying the desert through the TV series, Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy. I can’t get enough. Ankle deep into the first chapter, you may feel tempted to stop reading. Tucci is fastidious by nature, which can come off as snobbish, rather than discerning. I encourage you to press on. In chapter two, he shares childhood stories of his large Italian family - gardens and gift exchange battles and homemade sauce and wine making - that will be your rich reward for keeping the faith.

Incredibly vague name of red sauce or even, Gravy”. Do not call sauce, gravy. Gravy is completely different and what Brits use over our Sunday roast Dinners. My crush on Stanley Tucci isn’t primarily sexual. It’s more about the delights he whips up in the kitchen, his well-tailored ensembles, and the way his entire body so precisely flits along the surface of every changing emotion. The answer is both. I’ve known for many years that food was something that I was gravitating toward. Certainly, after we made “ Big Night,” which was twenty-five years ago, and then, after I did “Julie & Julia,” I just became more and more interested in food. Whenever I went to restaurants, if it was a good restaurant, I would figure out a way to insinuate myself into the kitchen shamelessly, so that I could just sort of see the way they work, and what the setup was, and maybe ask how they made a certain dish. It was fascinating to me. It became all I could think about, even when I was acting. So I knew that that was who I was. But, as I started writing, I realized that it was even more of who I was, if that makes sense. I was surprised how many details from your memoir I recognized from “Big Night,” which is not an autobiographical film. Do you collect these moments as they come, or do they only coalesce when the story starts to come together?

Multibuys

Monday: Meatball wedge. As we had meatballs in a slow-cooked, homemade, ragù with pasta for Sunday dinner, this lunch was a natural choice.