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Verano J. Petri, founder of Italian-Foods.com 

Background on Verano

A little background, I was born in Tuscany, in the city of Lucca, Italy. I came to the United States at 11 years of age, joining my mother from whom I was separated during WWII. My parents and I lived in the Chicago area, where we owned and operated an Italian Restaurant. My mother and father loved cooking Italian. Many of my relatives still live in Lucca where I visit them frequently. As I grew older and away from Chicago and Lucca, I realized the value of my heritage. Working for the government and moving all over the United States in places where there were no Italian stores or where finding things Italian was difficult, I missed the foods and things I grew up with.

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My Interest in Italian cooking

I love cooking Italian because it gives me a chance to create, to invent, and to design a meal pleasing to the palate. I enjoy watching my wife, my family; friends smile as they look at it and as they taste it. Creating is a wonderful experience. Once you get the hang of cooking Italian with our recipes and those of others, you can vary the seasoning, the ingredients, to fit your taste. It is difficult to be an individualist and be able to create if one is tied down and bound to grams and teaspoons of this and that. I enjoy reading a recipe and then within the bounds of it, create my own. Country Italian cooking provides this freedom. I provide fairly close quantities, which are needed as a guide, but one should vary it to taste, but please retain the basic flavor and consistency of the dish. For instance, a recipe for a basil pesto sauce suggests a certain amount of olive oil, garlic, basis leaves, parmigiano cheese, pine nuts and pepper: the cook decides how many and how much of each ingredient to use, according the one's taste. Help yourself, enjoy the freedom to experiment, to design, to invent. But first one must understand the fundamentals of Italian sauces and taste. There is no easier way than to practice, practice, and practice. I practice all the time, but my practices are fun. If it were a chore I would not do it. And, while practicing we enjoy each meal. If you learn anything out of this experience I hope to guide you to a flexible cooking experience that goods cooks all over Italy have practiced for centuries. Neither my mother nor any of the Italian relatives use a cookbook, and in time you wont have a need to use one either. That is our goal to teach you Italian cooking without a cookbook, just your senses. It will then be your pesto, your chicken cacciatora, and your linguini with white clam sauce. I will just be a distant memory. It will be you filled with enthusiasm, which will spread, to your family and friends. Before long your buddies will want to cook too, mine have, they all love to show their individuality, their creations.

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My training in the Italian cucina

I have attended cooking schools in Italy and in the United States, but the best is home in mamma's cucina or kitchen. The rest of the best is in Lucca with my aunt Nella and the country homes of my cousins who provide a festa every time I go there. Cooking from these recipes essentially brings you into the homes of my family and relatives in Italy.  

When I was 22 years of age I decided that if I am going to enjoy a good Italian meal, I am going to have to cook it at home. When married to a non-Italian, if it was going to be Italian, I would have to cook it. I still enjoy country-Italian cooking and coming from Lucca where gastronomy is an art in every home, they know how to prepare light, heart healthy foods, and they know how to prepare them well. I found it easy to cook because my father was a very good cook; he found pride in preparing a good meal for my mom and I at times. I saw the pleasure in my Mom's eyes of being relieved from what she was doing for hours in our Italian restaurant. I watched my idol, my father, prepare tasty little meals, like a finely sliced filet in a sugo or sauce of olive oil, garlic, rosemary and diluted tomato paste, reduced and then the filet would be seasoned in it for a few minutes on each side and served with a crusty Italian bread. That was called "gourmet" I heard later, but to me it was just country Italian cooking. I loved it particularly having grown up in a war zone where food was scarce and then coming to the land of "milk and honey" where availability of foods was plentiful in the Chicago area, heavily populated with Italian neighborhoods.

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