Cook Italian Like an Italian: Authentic Home Recipes for Pasta, Carbonara, Ragù, Tiramisù, and the Classics Foreigners Get Wrong

Forty Italian classics — taught by an Italian. No cream in the carbonara. No fake shortcuts. No tourist clichés. Just the dishes done right.Most "Italian" cookbooks are written for foreigners imagining Italy. This one is written by Marco Riminesi, an Italian who learned to cook in two kitchens — his Bergamasca mother's in Milan and his father's family's in Forlì — and who is patient enough to explain, without anger, why your carbonara probably has cream in it and shouldn't.Inside this cookbook:The classics, done right. Real carbonara without cream. Ragù alla bolognese the slow way. Tiramisù with honest mascarpone. Lasagna the way nonna stacks it. Forty iconic dishes, each cooked personally by the author.Substitutions for cooks outside Italy. Can't find 00 flour? Guanciale unavailable? Each recipe carries explicit notes on what to swap in, where it matters, and where it doesn't.What can go wrong — and how to fix it. The pasta-water trick most cookbooks miss. The egg-timing rule that saves a carbonara. The simmer pattern that gives ragù its texture. Plain-spoken troubleshooting from someone who has burned the pan.Eight chapters that build, not list. From pantry basics to pasta lessons, the classics foreigners get wrong, real sauces and Sunday favorites, everyday mains, vegetables Italians actually eat, desserts without nonsense, and a practical guide for cooks abroad. Recipes are ordered so you build skill, not just check boxes.Allergens and dietary notes. Every recipe marked clearly with what it contains, what it's free from, and where common substitutions apply.Conversion tables built in. Weight, volume, oven temperatures, common ingredient substitutions — all in one place at the back of the book.Recipe index by name. Forty recipes, alphabetical, with chapter references. Find what you're looking for fast.The promise: by the time you finish this cookbook, you will cook around forty classic Italian dishes the way Italians actually make them at home — and you will understand why each one works.Start reading today. Read more