I’ve known Romi Nadler, the genius behind the Italian blog Romina e La Cucina, for a few years now—mostly from afar, scrolling through the irresistible photos on Instagram and Facebook from her cooking workshops. Even though I wasn’t what you’d call an Italian food fanatic—at least, I thought I wasn’t—I wanted to meet her in person and learn a bit about homemade pasta. Because, let’s be honest, pasta is kind of the star of Italian cuisine, right next to gnocchi, tiramisu, pizza, focaccia, and a million other amazing dishes.
Romi was born in Italy, and while her parents worked and studied, she grew up. This is how the first spark of love was ignited. By the age of six, she had already moved back to Israel with her family, but fate had other plans, and when she was 20-years-old, she returned to Italy for ten years—falling completely in love with Italian cooking along the way.
We spent the morning cooking. Romi taught me a little more about the differences between southern and northern Italy. About the lack of use of cream in the south where locals focus on local ingredients—olive oil, almonds and olives—that are prevalent due to the region’s warm sun. “This is also why desserts with marzipan are more common in these areas,” she says. And the heavier dishes of the cooler north where cream and stews take center stage.
On the way home, with a box full of homemade pasta, I suddenly realized that, like a fine wine, it took me a while to develop a taste for it. But here it is, finally.