Tucci's Triumphant Return to Italy

My TV watching (and book reading) I do is 99 percent food-related.

- VICKY VELOSO-BARRERA

After viewing episodes of The Bear, The Makanai, Selena Gomez + Chef and other shows where the real star is gastronomy (and not celebrity), I am wont to pop into my kitchen, check the pantry, shop at the nearby grocery if needed and immediately cook what looked delicious onscreen. The members of my family are the happy recipients of this practice.

For cooks like me, one of the best-ever TV cooking shows in the world has got to be Tucci in Italy, Stanley Tucci's second foray into Italian food culture that manages to best his first series, Searching for Italy, on CNN. I was only one of many hordes of viewers bewildered by CNN's failure to proceed to the second season of this beloved show. Mercifully, the actor has found another streaming network to satisfy his waiting fans and we just finished watching five episodes (why only five???) on Disney+. It was well worth the wait.

I super love Stanley Tucci as an actor, especially in The Devil Wears Prada, Julie and Julia, and even, begrudgingly, in The Hunger Games where he plays the charismatic but insane-looking TV host Caesar Flickerman. But Tucci in either Searching for Italy or Tucci in Italy is truly in his element. Coming from a family of great cooks, he has also authored numerous books, including cookbooks, all of which I own save the latest one. I have cooked extensively from his cookbooks and when you follow his instructions everything comes out tasting like fine dining restaurant food. That's why I have great respect for him as a foodie, apart from his being a charming and witty host.