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I love the simplicity, the ingredients, the culture, the history and the seasonality of Italian cuisine. In Italy people do not travel. They cook the way grandma did, using fresh ingredients and what is available in season.

My grandmother used to cook for eight every day - sitting down lunches and dinner, the way you do it in Italy, you sit down. And when my parents could afford their own place, I went with them but still my mother used to work but used to come back from work to cook lunch for my father, come back from work, cook dinner for my father and me.

I always knew that food and wine were vital, with my mother being Italian and a good cook.

When it comes to my style, I'm a proper Italian woman of the modern age!

I'm a bit old-fashioned. I like the idea of going to the cinema and then an Italian restaurant.

My style in Italian is very old-style.

Well, I'm Italian, but my family isn't stereotypical. I mean, I only have one sister and we don't yell or throw pasta at each other. My mother doesn't even have a secret spaghetti sauce recipe.

My Italian granny and my mother made great spaghetti, but it wasn't a kind of southern Italian, Godfather-esque kind of thing - it was a wonderful, big mixing pot of all kinds of people - when you came home from school and your mum wasn't in, there were lots of people you could go to.

My wife was born and raised in Italy until she was about 9, and then she came to America, and her mom was a great cook, and they have great recipes, and whenever her mom would come into town, we would have all these friends just randomly showing up at our house, and eventually we figured out why. They wanted Mama's cooking.