Cicciotti’s Kitchen
Italian Family Favorites — Quick, Easy, and Delicious
by Gaetano Cicciotti
Book details:
• Jacketed hardcover
• 8″ x 8″
• 96 pages
• 40 recipes each with full-color photos
• $24.95 + shipping and handling;
• ISBN: 978-0-9816222-0-0
From the Introduction: This is what CICCIOTTI’S KITCHEN is all about: sharing some delicious dishes — Italian classics, restaurant favorites and new creations — and showing you how easy they are to make. It’s using the fresh, simple staples that I grew up with: fish, cheese, pasta, olive oil, tomato, onion and basil. You’ll find all of these ingredients in the recipes throughout this book.”
CICCIOTTI’S KITCHEN features more than 40 delicious, quick and easy-to-make Italian recipes, many learned and inspired by his childhood spent in the Naples, Italy kitchens of Cicciotti’s Grandmother and Mother. Dishes include Spaghetti alla Carbonara, Trenette al Pesto con Pinoli (Fettuccine with Pesto and Pine Nuts), Asparagi alla Zingara (Asparagus Bundles with Prosciutto), Rigatoni con Melanzane e Salsicca (Rigatoni with Eggplant and Sausage), Farfalle alla Boscaiola (Bowtie Pasta with Ham and Peas) and Scampi alla Livornese (Shrimp with Capers and Olives).
About the Author: Gaetano Cicciotti
When Gaetano Cicciotti (pronounced CHEE-chotti) first arrived in America as a young man in the 1990s, he didn’t speak a word of English and knew little about American life and culture. What he did know, however, was that his dream was to one day own a restaurant — and he was determined to make that dream come true in the USA. Born in Naples, Italy, Gaetano grew up in his family’s kitchen. It was there that he spent endless hours with his mother and grandmother, learning traditional Italian recipes and soaking in the wonderful smells and tastes of old-world homestyle Italian cooking. “Every day in the kitchen was exciting,” Gaetano recalls fondly. “My mother would fix supper with the day’s freshest produce, meats, fish and cheese. And weekends were always special with big family meals.” By the time he was a teenager, Gaetano had learned so much — and loved cooking so much — that he spent nearly all his free time in a kitchen or planning a meal. He was even known to sneak out of high school periodically to go the family beach house and cook for friends. After completing a tour of duty in the Italian Air Force, Gaetano decided to forgo a career in his family’s pharmaceutical business and seek his fortune in the United States. He had always dreamed of having his own nightclub or trattoria, and he soon realized that he would have to learn on the job.
He started his restaurant training in numerous Southern California restaurants, working his way from jobs in the kitchen to jobs in the front of the house. English and Spanish were spoken everywhere he went, and he soon became fluent in both. By 2002, Gaetano’s hard work paid off, that’s when he opened Cicciotti’s Trattoria Italiana & Seafood in Cardiff, California. “That was one of the proudest days of my life,” Gaetano remembers with a smile. “When I finally opened Cicciotti’s Tratorria, the dream finally came true.” Of course, being a restaurant owner is very different from being a restaurant employee, but, Gaetano doesn’t shrink from the challenge. Like everything else in his life, Gaetano knows that the huge responsibility and the long hours are all just part of making his dream a reality.
