Mamma Agata Cookbook Launch As Much About Friendship As Cooking

Last Friday night, a sold-out crowd of 42 people crammed into the cooking school at Central Market -Plano not so much to learn about Italian cooking, but to share an evening of tasty food, sip a few good Italian wines, and, for more than half  those attending, share a brief reunion with Chira Lima and her husband Gennaro.

The duo run the Mamma Agata Cooking School in Ravello,  Italy, on the Amalfi coast. Chiara and Gennaro (they like to be addressed by first name–how Italian!)  were sweeping through town on a brief North American tour to promote their new cookbook, “Mamma Agata:  Traditional Italian recipes of a family that cooks with love and passion in a simple and genuine way.”

“Most of these , I have met before,” says Chiara, hugging two people at once, an arm around each.  She recalls most of their names, even though 800 people a year or attend her cooking school.

“You cut your hair,” she says to one. ” I love it.”

“You haven’t changed a bit,” she says to another.

“She catered our wedding in Ravello a couple of years ago,”  said Ian Scott,  who was attending the class with his wife, Darci. “We went crazy when we heard she would be here.”

“My cooking is nothing complicated, nothing difficult.” Chiara told the class. “It’s just easy and simple.”  While she talked, the central market staff was busy whipping up the recipes: eggplant Parmesan, a basic tomato sauce, a simple farmer’s spaghetti.

” It’s not enough to cook recipes. You have to cook with love and with family.”

The recipes in the book are simple and direct, just like Chiara:  baked fish with Italian breadcrumbs,  potato gnocchi, eggplant rolls. Like her brief cooking class, the cookbook is peppered with secrets and tips that any home cook would appreciate.

About eggplants, Chiara isntructs, “Don’t use the round, plumpy ones that look like me.  they absorb too much water and oil.  Buy the long, thin ones.”

About tomato sauce: “Add 10 or 15 fresh cherry tomatoes to your sauce right at the end, then purée it. This gives the sauce a good fresh flavor.”

About houseguests:  “Make plenty of eggplant rolls” as an appetizer, says Chiara.  “And make them in advance, so you can serve them to your guests when they come snooping around your kitchen. Give give them a roll, then send them on their way.”