About the author of the recipes on this site: Anthony Baker
Who the heck are you? Are you a Chef? Do you have a restaurant? Why did you make this site? Do you have a cookbook? Are you married?... These are some of the questions I get asked often.
I'm just a guy who loves Italian food and who spent a lot of time in the kitchen with his Italian Grandma and Mom asking a lot of questions and enjoying their cooking and company and now am discovering the joy of doing all that cooking myself for my family! :-)
This Italian recipes website started out back in 1998 when I created an extremely detailed recipe for Spaghetti Sauce and Meatballs for my Dad, who always wanted to know how to make his Mother-In-Law's Sauce. This website is a labor of love that I have created and am still creating, in an effort to keep my Italian Grandmother's cooking and traditions going on into the next generations. Spending all day in the kitchen cooking and long hours at the dinner table enjoying good food and good company with family and friends is becoming a lost art and is a very sad thing to see! My hope is that these recipes might help the old Italian-American traditions of good food and love shared at the dinner table come back to the family again! I little more information about me below.
I have a small article I wrote below that will explain a little bit more about this site and why it exists and why it is such a labor of love for me. Happy to share with you!
<> Christian <> Father <> Husband <> Son <> Friend <>
<> Brother <> Mechanical Engineer <> Children's Pastor <> Webmaster <>
<> Trail Runner <> Conga Player <> Lover of Music <> Computer Geek <> and others <>
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SpagehttiSauceAndMeatballs.com is an Italian family recipe website that was created to keep my Italian grandmother’s recipes and traditions alive and well into the generations to come. I have written each recipe out in a vary detailed way with lots of love and respect for my families cooking. Spelled out in a way where anybody can learn how to cook the big Sunday Gravy! The Spaghetti Sauce, Meatballs, Braciole with Sausage and pork chops, the whole works! A laborious effort has been taken to take the mystery out of what seemed to be only something grandma could create.This Italian Recipe website is much more than just another website with recipes. It not only offers very detailed instructions for making the secret recipe my Italian grandmother and Mom used to make, but it also strives to explain the Italian-American culture. It's so much more than just about the food. The magic of real Authentic food is not just about the food, it's about all the love that is being poured into it, about the family and friends that sit at the table for hours on end enjoying great food and good company, sharing love and laughter at the table and spending all day in the kitchen. These things are becoming a lost art! You can see the passion in a lot of the email correspondence I get from my visitors. I share a lot of my conversations about food and family in the Sauce Talk section of the site. There is quite a lot of great reading there from many visitors who grew up as I did, in an Italian-American Household where there was an Italian grandma who made amazing food who never did share the secrets of how she made that amazing food and now they are searching how in the world to make the Sunday Gravy, Sausage Bread, or Italian Bread that grandma used to make as well as many other authentic Italian dishes.
So many deep dark secrets in old family Italian cooking! I had spent a lot of time working my way through my grandmother’s recipes working out every detail. One thing that is a standard in Italian grandmother’s recipes is they were extremely vague. I had to work with hand written recipes that had instruction s like, add “some flour” or add “some basil” or “cook until done!”, etc… Each recipe on the site has taken a lot of time and love to work out. I have provided hundreds of step by step photos to walk you through the process. Rather than having a site with 100's and 1,000's of recipes, I spend much time on each recipe, pouring lots of love into them and spending lots of time getting them just right. In other words, Just Like Grandma Used To Make. When I can make a recipe that brings back the exact texture, taste and look and feel that my grandma made I am instantly taken back to a much simpler time and family and love and just good times! Then I know I nailed it!
The whole concept of the detailed Italian family recipes started from something my Dad (who is no longer with us, I miss him!) asked me one day. My parents got divorced when I was around 8 and my Dad who is Irish/English, loved his Italian mother in-laws sauce and could never find anything that tasted as good anywhere! So I told him I knew how to cook the sauce like grandma did. I spent a lot of time with my grandma Salerno in the kitchen helping her and asking a lot of questions. (You want to make an Italian grandmother very happy? Ask her about her cooking!). I have also had many food conversations with my mom and uncles pulling out the family secrets of the Italian cooking. Well, I spent the time one weekend to work through all the details which was not an easy task because I learned how to do all the Italian cooking by feel like my grandma did. She would always so, you put, you taste, you put some more and you just know when it’s done! So after spelling out “every single” detail of how to make the “Sunday Sauce” like grandma did, I threw the recipe up on the internet and told my Dad where to find it. He found it and followed the recipe and to his astonishment was able to make the same sauce my grandmother made. He was so happy! Anyway, I had forgotten about the page I put up but then started getting a lot of emails about the sauce recipe…. and so started the website.
I just kept adding recipes and secret details to all my grandmother’s recipes and I have had a blast doing it. It is so much fun to get emails from people who never knew how to make their grandmother Pasta sauce, or Sunday gravy, there are many names for this, and now they can. I get many emails that go into family history describing the good times in the kitchen and at the table when growing up in an Italian home. It’s hard to describe a 5 hour dinner with multiple courses to someone who has not grown up in that Italian-American culture. You see, it’s a lot more then just about the food. There is so much love and good times shared through all the cooking and eating and well, there really is just nothing like it! So with these recipes I hope to keep those traditions going and get the family to stay at home, cook a nice meal and spend time with each other just enjoying the good things in life!
One thing I have seen in this fast food world we live in now is the tradition of cooking all day and having long dinners at the table, sharing love with family and friends is disappearing from our society. I have created these detailed recipes to take the mystery out of the all day cooking meals and make it fun and enjoyable. Hopefully these recipes will inspire you to take some time with your family, make some great food and share some wonderful times creating memories that will last a life time!
A full list of recipes is on this page here: Italian Family Recipes.
Ciao, Anthony
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