On June 8, Paul Torre, The Italian Chef who was the inspiration for this website and, more importantly, my father, passed away after a two year struggle with multiple diseases. I knew I wanted to write about this here because he was such a big part of this site, but it took me some time to be able to write what I wanted to say.

I started this website back in 1999, with the purpose of keeping my father’s recipes alive after he retired from the restaurant business. Born to Italian immigrants in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, his family moved back to Italy to escape the great depression shortly after his birth. When he was 18 he came back to America, settling in the New York metropolitan area, and began a 40+ year career as an accomplished chef. The last 19 years of that career were spent as chef/owner of his own Italian restaurant, La Villetta in Larchmont, NY.

When I started this website I was not much of a cook. Although, I had worked in the restaurant since I was a teenager, it was always in the front of the house as a waiter. The early process of trying to get recipes from a chef who did everything by feel was not easy. When I would ask him for amounts of ingredients I would get answers like “You know” and “Better too little than too much.” Eventually, we settled into a routine of cooking together with me taking the handfuls and pinches of ingredients from him, and measuring them. Those were great times that I will always cherish. As I became more comfortable with cooking over the years, and getting together to cook became more difficult, I would discuss a dish with him then go off on my own to work out measurements. When I was happy with my results I would then show him the recipe for approval and final tweaking. Cooking together and discussing food forged a bond between us that greatly added to an already special father-son relationship.

Sadly, he is gone now, so I no longer will have his direct input or advice on this website or life in general for that matter. He was not only a great chef, but a great father and I will miss him dearly. However, his spirit will always be by my side in the kitchen, and I will always apply the sensibility about and principles of Italian cooking that he instilled in me. Being a chef was not just a job for my father, he truly had a passion for cooking and hospitality. That passion is a gift that he gave to me, and I will continue the journey I started here with my dad.

I love you and miss you Dad.

The Italian Chef is proud to announce that we are collaborating with Chef Silvia Bianco on a new multimedia food blog, Taste Frame. The goal of Taste Frame is to be very visual as well as educational, with the posts featuring video instruction and/or step by step pictures. Our latest post features a video of Chef Silvia demonstrating her signature Hand-Rolled Lasagna.

On a personal note, I am also excited about the opportunity this will give me to branch out and blog on other types of cooking besides Italian. So please check out Taste Frame and let us know what you think.

A few months ago I was invited to join a new website called Springpad. Springpad is a free online personal organizer that helps people get things done. From food and entertainment to parenting and managing the day-to-day, Springpad makes it easy for you to collect, use and share content from bloggers, brands and trusted friends to help organize your life. To date, the Springpad community of hundreds of food bloggers and thousands of members have already collected and shared more than 50,000 recipes and created more than 15,000 weekly meal plans.

They asked me to join because they were launching a new feature, Weekly Recipe Planner, which allows Springpad users use their web clipper tool or click on their partners’ “save it!” buttons to collect recipes from across the web. Once in Springpad, users can personalize and share their recipes by adding notes, photos and video and automatically generate shopping lists. Springpad also has a mobile web app that allows you to access your recipes, shopping lists and meal plans on the go.

I have updated all of the recipes on this blog with a Springpad “save it!” button:

 

When you click on this button a popup window will allow you to save the recipe to your Springpad (if you are a registered user) without leaving The Italian Chef. All recipes going forward will have the “save it!” button and I am working to add it to all of the legacy recipes on italianchef.com.  I am excited to be adding this new functionality to our recipes because I think Springpad is a very nice application. It is quite easy to use and can really help you organize your online life.