CIAO ITALIA
The Very Best in Italian Cookery
26 X 26'
Mary Ann Esposito, host of the longest-running Italian cooking show on public television, celebrates her eleventh season by re-creating her all-time favourite Italian regional recipes nella
cucina (in the kitchen) with the help of celebrity chefs and national cookbook authors.
Whether it's an honest, homey butternut squash soup served Venetian-style or a steaming pot of Tuscan Tilemakers stew, each
region of Italy has its own secret favourite recipes that Mary Ann shares with her viewers using simple, step-by-step instructions so easy that anyone can do it.
And what's Italy without fresh vegetables? Niente. Fortunately, Mary Ann's home garden delivers a bumper crop of veggies this season, including artichokes,
lettuces and other crunchy treats for her to create salads galore, pizza toppings that tempt you to go off your diet and a Carciofi e Patate Al Forno (oven baked artichoke hearts) to die for.
If you think you know Italy, think again. It's not just a country filled with Italians, it's a land filled with people living in regions so distinct, so unique, that it takes a great cook like Mary Ann to
unearth just the right recipes that capture the essence of Tuscany, Umbria, Emilia Romagna, Calabria - the list of regions is endless and so are the unforgettable recipes she has researched - over 250 of them.
Mary Ann learned the secret of Italian cooking from her Sicilian and Neapolitan-born grandmothers, as well as from cooking schools in Italy. One of her earliest childhood
memories of growing up in Buffalo, New York, was waking up to the smell of fresh-baked bread made by her grandmother Nonna Galasso, an olive picker from Avellino, who began baking
every day at 4 a.m. Like most teenagers, Mary Ann wanted to be just like her friends. For her "Sweet Sixteen" birthday party she laid down the law to her mother and grandmother:
hamburgers and chocolate cake. "No Cannoli!" she begged those two wonderful cooks who raised her. "No fennel either! And no chickpeas!" But before the hamburgers were served,
Mary Ann recalls her mother and grandmother gave the roomful of girls a surprise - three kinds of gnocchi. And they loved it! To this day Mary Ann always makes gnocchi for her own birthday!
Producer: Mary Ann Esposito Productions.
Availability: Worldwide ex. US, all media.