Part 1 (1/2)

Skinny Italian.

EAT IT AND ENJOY IT.

by Teresa Giudice.

1 - Salute!

The first thing people usually say to me when they find out I have four kids is that they could never tell from my body. I thank them, thinking this is a compliment, only to be quickly proven wrong. Follow-up questions immediately include: ”What diet plan are you on?,” ”Do you live in the gym?,” and my favorite, ”What's the name of your plastic surgeon?”

If you watched the first season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, you know I was brave (or maybe crazy) enough to allow Bravo to film me going through the process of getting my ”bubbies” done. If you saw me in the leopard-print bikini, you are totally on my side on this one. I worried, I cried, I kvetched, I kept changing my mind . . . because this was the first surgery I'd ever had in my life.

I swear on Us magazine, I have never had lipo, a tummy tuck, a ”mommy makeover,” or even a C-section. All of my children were born the old-fas.h.i.+oned way: with lots of pus.h.i.+ng, screaming, cursing, and, thank G.o.d, pain medication. I am a big fan of the epidural. Big knives near my body? Not so much.

I must exercise religiously then, right? Our lady of the heavens, no! I have four little ones to chase after; I barely have time for a manicure. We don't have a workout room in our house (unless you count the bedroom, which I do . . . ). I don't have a personal trainer or yoga master or whatever. I have no strict exercise regimen, although I'll admit, I like how I feel after I work out. But it's not my thing. I'd rather enjoy life with my kids than live in a gym.

And, let me a.s.sure you, I eat. I freakin' love food. Always have. Always will. Food is an integral part of my life and the lives of my family and friends. It's how we communicate, how we love, how we laugh. Food is our second language. It's lovingly prepared, shared, toasted, savored, slathered (you read that right), and occasionally, if you push my b.u.t.tons, thrown. Food is such a sensual pleasure. The thought of shoving your fingers into freshly made dough, of licking the dripping tomato sauce off the spoon . . . I'm making it sound like a giant aphrodisiac, and as I sit here, looking at the four beautiful kids Joe and I created, I'm thinking maybe it is.

Eating is definitely one of the greatest joys on earth, and I wouldn't give it up for anything. My mother, who never dieted a day in her life, used to shake her head and say, ”Think of those poor women on the t.i.tanic who refused dessert!”

In other words: life is short; pa.s.s the cannoli.

I'll admit, before I was on TV, I never thought so much about my own body and the way I eat. You think you've spent your entire adolescence in front of the mirror, but until you're cornered at Costco with curious fans literally picking through your cart to see what you're buying, you have no idea. It's bizarre. Suddenly, everyone wants the skinny on my a.s.s.

And honestly, I don't blame them (although, if you see me, please keep your hands off my fresh vegetables-that kind of skieves me out). I like to know what my friends eat. I'm interested in Oprah's favorite foods. Actually, I like Gayle's picks better; girlfriend knows how to enjoy her food!

And everything about food and nutrition in this country has become a big confusing mess. Is Splenda safe? Nutrasweet? Olestra? Which one gives you the runs? Seriously, somebody tell me because I am not having that.

What's in one day is out the next. Remember when eggs were the enemy? Now, they're fine. For a while, you were supposed to eat lots of meat-was that the Atkins, Pritikin, or caveman diet?-then suddenly, meat wasn't okay. Now, half the ”experts” say you need protein at every meal, and half say you don't need it ever. Milk was bad, then it was good, then it was even better because it was supposed to help you lose weight. Now I've heard it's going back on the bad list. Too bad, because my girls drink milk, milk, milk all day long, and there's no chance I'm stopping them. They love it! Me too.

Even the government and all those nutritional experts don't know what's what, since they had to change their little nutrition pyramid guide into some weird triangle thing that n.o.body understands.

Like you, I have more than one friend who's been on so many different food plans, she's completely forgotten how to eat. Jill pours salt over her food to make herself stop eating. I've actually found Leah picking brownie crust out of her trash can. And Heidi went to a no-carbs boot camp and went so crazy, I had to block her number from my cell phone until she promised to eat a piece of bread.

I'm not a nutritionist or food scientist or a fancy chef. I'm just like you: a regular girl with two eyes and a brain and enough common sense not to buy any of this c.r.a.p. I've always loved my body, and I've been eating the exact same way since the day I was born. I can tell you in two words why I can eat, eat, eat and still look fabulous: Italian food.

Both of my parents were born and raised in Italy. I was actually conceived there right before my parents moved to America in 1971. (My ma didn't even know she was pregnant. She just wondered why her clothes kept getting tighter.) My brother and I grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, but inside our house, it might as well have been Salerno. We ate real Italian food-not the b.a.s.t.a.r.dized fast-food version of it-every single day. My ma shopped at the farmer's market and the local Italian grocery to make sure she could get the same little envelopes of spices and secret ingredients from home. Real Italian food uses olive oil, not heavy cream. We grill and saute; we don't bread, dunk, and deep-fry. And we use fresh ingredients, not stuff floating in formaldehyde (I know canned foods don't really have formaldehyde in them, but all those preservatives and artificial flavorings are still like poison to your body).

You and I both know gorgeous Italian women who are skinny not because they eat healthy Italian food, but because they starve themselves. But that's the exception, not the rule. You can find neurotic people who obsess about food from any ethnicity. (Bethenny, honey, you really want me to order a steak and only eat three bites of it? Are you freakin' kidding me?) Need proof that Italian women who cook and eat up a storm of true Italian food can still have fabulous figures? Google Giada De Laurentiis, drool for a minute, and then come back to me.

I'm eighteen months old here with my daddy and mommy. How cute are they?

I want everyone to be able to enjoy la dolce vita. I'm going to teach you how to throw painful portion control (and even your measuring cups) out the window, to enjoy, entertain, and eat the most luscious foods on the planet, and to love-love-love your life and the body that comes with it.

Welcome to the Italian way of life. Salute!

What exactly do the Italians know about food and health? In a word: everything. We've had more than two thousand years of practice. The oldest surviving cookbook in the world, De Re Conquinaria, is from Italy. Apicius is believed to have written it in the first century a a.d., and you can bet your a.s.s it doesn't include wheatgra.s.s or tofu.

Italian food was named the favorite cuisine of 72 percent of the 500,000 Americans polled by Food & Wine magazine (and you know why). It's easy to forget, however, that it's some of the healthiest food in the world. Our national toast, salute, means ”to your health.” And we mean it. According to the CIA's World Factbook 2009, for all our fancy technology and advanced medicine and world-cla.s.s hospitals, the average life expectancy in America for a woman is eighty years. In Italy, it's eighty-three. Imagine adding three entire years to your life! And for eating bread and pasta? Gimme some of that!

Say My NameAll right, I'm sick of everyone misp.r.o.nouncing my last name. I've noticed that people from other cultures will talk with perfect American accents until they say their name, and then they sound like they just got off the boat. But not us Italians. We'll let you butcher our names to bits. No more!To be honest, I didn't actually realize I could do this, just reclaim the correct way to say my name, until my friend's family did. Her maiden name was Zavagno, and everyone said it like this: ”Zah-VAG-no.” For twenty years, they were the ZaVAGnos, until one day, the youngest son couldn't take it anymore and started making everyone say ”Zuh-VON-yo” instead. Within a year, it stuck. It's not a snooty thing; it's a you-want-people-to-say-your-own-d.a.m.n-name-correctly thing.So, here we go. My last name is Giudice Giudice. You've probably heard it p.r.o.nounced ”jew-dice” since I've been on TV, but that's wrong (Andy Cohen at Bravo, I'm looking at you!).Say ”Judy Chay” really fast. Now put the emphasis on the first syllable and slow each syllable down a bit: ”JU-dee-Chay.” Now add your best Italian accent, and we're good! Giudice actually means ”judge” in Italian, so I believe I have the power to make this change permanent. Court dismissed! Giudice actually means ”judge” in Italian, so I believe I have the power to make this change permanent. Court dismissed!

Before we get into more of my Italian heritage, I want to get into yours. Italians are famous for their hospitality, and I want you to feel truly at home here, together in our little Italian book. No matter where your family is actually from, considering the Romans conquered pretty much the entire world, it's safe to say that you're Italian too, whether you like it or not. But you will love it, I promise!

Me on my first birthday. Can you imagine letting a baby hold a knife that big? Ah marone!

I've got a college degree in fas.h.i.+on, not food, but I think growing up in a 100 percent Italian household, speaking the language since I could talk, and eating my ma's cooking since I could walk, more than qualifies me to dish on the deliciousness of Italian cuisine. I make my own sauce (of course!), and also my own sausage, and even wine (not to sell or anything, just to always have what we like on our table). My husband and I opened a traditional Italian restaurant in Hillside, New Jersey: Giuseppe's Homestyle Pizzeria. My dad is there every day, helping plan the daily specials from the Old Country.

Me and my baby brother, Joey. How cute is he?

My husband and my in-laws are Italian too. My ”juicy” husband, Giuseppe (most people call him Joe), was born in Italy. Both Joe's and my parents are from the same small town in Salerno, Sala Consilina, although they didn't become friends until they all moved to America in the 1970s. When he was three years old, Joe was actually in the hospital with his parents the day I was born, waiting to meet me; so I guess he's been chasing me since I came out of the womb.

We had a crush on each other all through our childhoods (yes, we even ”played house”), although my mother always warned me against liking him because he was a ”bad boy.” He was a whole twelve years old at the time.

We've been married for ten years and are blessed with four beautiful children. Food is such a major part of our lives, and I'm so happy I now get to cook in the kitchen with my kids.

When we were growing up, both Joe and I had kitchen ch.o.r.es and had to be at the dinner table cleaned up and on time every night. Things were different back then: the man expected dinner on the table, kids quietly waiting in their seats for him, when he walked in the door. Yeah, I know there are tons of men-Joe included-who would love that to be the rule today, too. But the men used to come home at 5:30 every night. That's right, 5:30. When's the last time you or your man were home for dinner at that time? Joe comes home at a different time every night. I never know when to expect him. How am I supposed to have a hot dinner ready?

JUICY B BITS FROM FROM Joe JoeMy wife is a great cook. I don't know how she does it, constantly running around with four munchkins. Where she gets her energy from is beyond me, but Teresa is always hustling.My favorite meal that Teresa makes is her oven chicken and potatoes. And her steak and vegetable salad. She also has this amazing veal and peppers dish.But don't be fooled: my wife did not know how to cook when we got married. She learned everything from her mom over the phone. I have to say, she learned pretty quickly, and now she's great at it. She makes up her own recipes and we still have a big family dinner every Sunday at two o'clock.Trust me on this, Teresa is an amazing woman, but if she learned to cook great homemade Italian food when she was twenty-seven, you can start anytime, too!

I do make dinner for him and my family, of course, five nights a week (Friday is family restaurant night and Sat.u.r.day is date night), but I generally don't get started until he gets home. The beauty of Italian cooking, though, is that most dishes are so simple, especially if you have certain sauces and herbs around at all times, that they can be made pretty quickly. Fresh, quick, easy, and delicious? Sign me up, right?

I'll cook anywhere. My husband and I go over to Chris and Jacqueline Laurita's house a lot. The men play poker while we cook. Well, let's be honest, I cook and Jacqueline watches. I'm kidding (sort of). She makes appetizers and I'll make the main course. Open a bottle of wine, catch up on all our gossip, it's the best!

October 23, 1999- My Shakespeare in Lovethemed wedding. Don't you love the poet sleeves on my dress?

Jacqueline is allergic to seafood, which is fine since my husband has a tendency to let all of the crabs we catch at the Jersey Sh.o.r.e go when he's had too much to drink. (There's this little bushel with a top on it that sits in the water to keep the crabs alive and fresh, and what does Joe do? He flings the entire freakin' crate into the ocean so hard, the top falls off, and the whole bucket swims away. He had to make the trip of shame to the grocery store that night for store-bought crabs . . . and gelatos of apology. I'd forgive anyone who brings me Gelotti's, my favorite ice cream shop in Paterson. Well, almost anyone.) All right, I have a confession to make. It's been ten years since my first solo Italian meal. If you do the math, you'll quickly figure out I haven't been cooking since I was a kid. In fact, I didn't know how to cook at all until I got married. I helped in the kitchen, of course, but I wasn't allowed to touch anything important or mix things or taste and experiment, so mostly, like any kid, I did my ch.o.r.es in a trance. Italian mammas are famous for taking care of their families so well that their kids never want to leave. Most Italian boys go right from their ma's house to their wife's. Same with me and Joe. I was super excited to get married, but once it was all over and I was standing in the kitchen, preparing to make my first ”married” meal, I panicked. I had no idea what to do. When you're dating, everything you make for your guy is good. But now I felt like the bar was raised a bit. Like he was going to compare whatever I cooked him to his mom's fabulous food.

I reached for the phone, called my own ma, and cried to her like a baby (in Italian, of course).

Playing with FireIt's hard for any woman to match up to the last woman in her man's life, especially if she was a super cook, and especially if she was an Italian mamma. Joe's mom is a great cook, but you understand, I had to be better.The way I eventually won Joe over was by using some reverse kitchen psychology. Instead of refusing to do things ”the way his ma used to do it,” I took every chance I got (innocently of course) to use Joe's secondhand recommendations. And almost every time, they led to some kind of explosion.I would be heating the olive oil and he'd say, ”You have to add water to it. That's how my ma did it.” I knew this wasn't right (you add water to the tomato sauce later, but not the hot oil), but I wanted him to see it with his own two eyes. I added the water to the saucepan and snap, crackle, pop, we were both covered in hot oil bubbles.It didn't take too many times of him having to wipe up his wise-a.s.s mess before he realized I was a pretty good cook all by myself.

She actually taught me how to cook over the phone. That should tell you how easy it is to make delicious Italian food. Me, I'm not going to wait until my girls get married to teach them how to cook. I'm starting now, even though they're tiny. They have their little jobs in the kitchen, and I just love to be around them and cook with them.

Since not everyone has a relative from the Amalfi coast to call in a cooking crisis, I decided to write this book to pa.s.s on some of our family's tips, tricks, and traditions. It's a love letter to my mamma. It's a lesson plan for my kids. And it's a ”welcome to the family” for you. I'm far too young to be your mother, but I'll be your Italian best friend-the fiery, kind of crazy one, who's always good for a bottle of wine, a big dish of pasta, and a million laughs.

Some stereotypes are true: everyone loves an Italian girl. I'll teach you how to embrace your inner paesan, how to cook like Mamma, entertain like an angel, and how to stoke the fires in your kitchen, relations.h.i.+ps, and even the bedroom.

Allora! Let's get started!

2 - The Cornerstones of Italian Cuisine (or Things Not Found at the Olive Garden) .

I'm sorry if this dashes your dreams, but you gotta know this: the Olive Garden does not serve Italian food. They serve American-Italian food; and there's a big, big difference-a difference you will see in your big, big b.u.t.t if you only eat that kind of food.

Every one of our families came to America from another country at some point in time, and brought with us our cultures, traditions, languages, and, of course, food. But when it's all thrown into that great big ”melting pot,” sometimes the ingredients get more than a little muddled.