Darin is joined by author and content creator Danny Freeman to talk about his new cookbook, Italianish: Modern Twists on Classic Italian Flavors, out August 26. They dive into how his grandma shaped his love for Italian cooking, why tradition is meant to evolve, and what it means to bring creativity into the kitchen without losing its soul. Danny shares his Five Rules for Modernizing Italian food, from changing up formats to embracing shortcuts, and even using an ingredient rarely seen in a nonna’s kitchen. It’s a warm, honest conversation about honoring where you come from while cooking for the life you’re living now. If you’ve ever wanted to shake up a classic red sauce or make a lasagna your own, this one’s for you.
A message from the Independent Hospitality Coalition for those being affected by ICE raids in Los Angeles:
Attention restaurant owners, be prepared. Thank you to everyone who has shared information that has allowed us to plan.
As if restaurant owners and hospitality workers did not have enough to worry about. Our kitchens are what they are because of are immigrant community. ICE is plucking people from our community in the name of law and order, we know the truth.
History will remember this moment.
Un mensaje de la Independent Hospitality Coalition para quienes están siendo afectados por las redadas de ICE en Los Ángeles:
Atención dueños de restaurantes: prepárense. Gracias a todos los que han compartido información que nos ha permitido organizarnos.
Como si los dueños de restaurantes y trabajadores de hospitalidad no tuvieran ya suficientes preocupaciones. Nuestras cocinas son lo que son gracias a nuestra comunidad inmigrante. ICE está arrancando a personas de nuestra comunidad en nombre de la ley y el orden —pero nosotros conocemos la verdad.
La historia recordará este momento.
[00:00:00] Darin Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I'm your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, we are chatting with author and content creator, Danny Freeman, whose new book, Italianish, Modern Twists on Classic Italian Flavors, comes out on August 26th. We have a. Fun conversation about his deep love and deep roots tied to Italian cooking. We talked about how he honors his grandmother's approach in the kitchen, how he's updated some of his favorite dishes for his family and a secret ingredient that you shouldn't be afraid to use when cooking some of your favorite Italian recipes. Let's get into the rules. Danny, it's so nice to meet you. Congratulations on your second book, Italian-ish modern twist on classic Italian flavor. How does book number two feel compared to book number one?
[00:00:54] Danny It's exciting. It's very exciting. I would say it was easier in some ways because I had been through it before, but a lot harder in other ways. My first book was really a manual on how to make fresh pasta, which is something I have done a million times. This is a more traditional cookbook in that it's got soup, salad, appetizers, desserts. I was coming up with a hundred plus recipes from scratch and making them all over and over again and testing them, so it was exciting, but it a lot of work.
[00:01:20] Darin I have to imagine like any sort of first album you get to pull from a whole lifetime of recipes and stories and experiences. And the second one is usually coming a lot faster and with pretty much all new stuff.
[00:01:30] Danny Definitely. I mean, for both books, I pulled a lot from my childhood and food that I ate when I was growing up, but I couldn't reuse stories and recipes in the second book that I used up in the first one.
[00:01:40] Darin Whenever I've worked on cooking shows in the past, I had Italian recipes. If we had any sort of variation, people would lose their minds, which I know something that you had to deal with a ton of times, but when you go to Italy, the whole country's variations, how do you handle that type of, let's say viewer and reader feedback?
[00:01:58] Danny I get that all the time. I love cooking Italian-American food, but I also like giving it a twist. I mean, the book is called Italian-ish because it's not perfectly traditional. So I get a lot of feedback from people who love that. And then I get lot of from people who are very traditional and think you can never deviate at all from the food that they ate when they were growing up. But honestly, I believe that that's the way we should be eating food. Food should be exciting. It should make it work for your life. So I am very comfortable with people giving me a hard time about some of the things that I make, but I promise I'm never coming to anyone's house and forcing them to cook my way. I'm just offering my take on things.
[00:02:32] Darin And there's only so many classic red sauce recipes you can make. And most of those classic ones have been perfected. So you got to try something new. You got to put your own spin on it. Exactly. I love in your videos and in the book and a lot of the stories, how much you incorporate your family, your husband, your kids, and how important it is to cook for them. Why does that matter so much to you to bring your family into your kitchen and to everything you do?
[00:02:54] Danny I have a one-year-old and a four-year old. They are... Big inspiration for this book. I really started getting seriously into cooking when my grandmother passed away and my first daughter was born. And I was sort of at this life moment where I was reflecting on a lot of my traditions growing up and food that we ate, but also thinking a lot about, well, what am I gonna pass on to my children and what are the traditions I'm going to make for them? That had such a big impact on my food and the way I cook, drawing from my past, but thinking about how do I make it modern for my kids? How do I bring them in? How do we make it fun for them, how do we expose them to lots of different foods? The cookbook is a lot about taking those flavors that I loved growing up, but trying them in a new way. All of that was floating around in my brain as I was writing this book, and also just trying to get dinner on the table every single night with the kids.
[00:03:38] Darin I love taking something that you grew up with, these classic Italian recipes from your grandmother and making them your own. So let's get into your five rules for modernizing Italian food. And the first one is something that I'd like to do for my family. What is your rule one?
[00:03:53] Danny Rule one, every tradition is just an innovation that stuck. The food that my grandmother made, that my great grandparents ate, my great great grandparents made, they're just trying to get food on the table, trying to use the ingredients that they had. That's how it was throughout Italy, using fresh ingredients that were available, things that they could get cheaply. It's only over time that we have now said it has to be done exactly this way every single time. Families were trying different things, and then some of those became traditions that we now eat. So I try and keep that in mind now when I'm cooking. All of these things that I'm trying, Some of them may become traditions for my family, even if they haven't been in the past. And I think that people should honor and respect the food that they like, of course, but be open to trying something a different way that works for them, even if it's a little bit different than what they've done before.
[00:04:36] Darin I love your approach of adding in new or variations of an ingredient to create your own take on a dish. And another way to do this is to take familiar flavors and change how it's presented. What is rule number two?
[00:04:49] Danny Changing the form of a traditional dish can make it feel fresh. I did a lot of this in Italian-ish because this is a trick that I use a lot when I'm cooking for my family. If I think of a great meal that my kids like, like a lasagna, I don't necessarily have time to make that every night. Or as often as I'd like, but you could take it in a new form, the lasagna soup, where you know they're gonna like the flavors, but it's faster, easier. Another favorite of mine from the book is an Orecchiette and broccoli rabe soup with sausage. I love that pasta dish, it's very traditional. And I love to make it as a soup because it can last all week. Very homey in the winter. A lot of times I make salads that are inspired by other dishes. In the cookbook, I have a beef brujole inspired salads. You know you're already gonna like it, because you know you like those flavors, but it feels new and exciting because it's a different format.
[00:05:35] Darin While rule number one and rule number two deal with using new ingredients and approaches to modernize Italian cooking, I believe that by truly practicing rule number three, it allows you to push your cooking in an even more modern direction. What is your third rule?
[00:05:51] Danny Rule number three, focus on simple, fresh ingredients. Obviously, I did not invent that rule. That's really critical in Italian cooking. Think of something like a caprese salad. It's very simple. Tomato, mozzarella, basil. But if you're using really great tomatoes in summer and fresh basil, that's really all you need. Maybe just a little salt, olive oil, vinegar, you're good to go. When I was writing this book... My family spent a summer in Italy. Love it. And this was my first time in Italy with a baby and a toddler. In the past, my husband and I had gone to nice restaurants. We'd go to wine bars, we'd sit and drink. Obviously it was a little bit different with young kids. And so we were eating a lot more quick meals, street food, bread and cheese. And that really helped me focus on just, all right, we can get really good produce and that can be a meal and we don't need a whole lot else. Just few simple things.
[00:06:35] Darin One of the greatest joys about traveling with children is cooking on vacation and no better country than Italy.
[00:06:42] Danny Yes, we spent a few days in Genoa.
[00:06:44] Darin Hmm
[00:06:45] Danny where basil pesto comes from, focaccia comes from. And you could just go down the street and get freshly made pesto and freshly made focacia and have a meal and that's all you really needed.
[00:06:53] Darin When you think of Italian food, you think you gotta roll up the sleeves, start with all the raw ingredients, but rule number four helps you save a little bit of time and a little stress in the kitchen.
[00:07:03] Danny Rule number four, not everything has to be made from scratch. I am a person who loves to cook and I really became known for making fresh pasta. But if you're cooking on a Wednesday night, you're not making fresh pasta, fresh sauce, grinding your own meat for sausage. You're not doing all of that. I really tried in the book to make the recipes really versatile where you can sub in different ingredients. For example, I have one. It's an appetizer. It's a meatball sub muffin. Got meatballs, sauce, wrapped in the pastry. I say in the books, you can make the dough. I have the recipe for the dough, I had the recipe for the meatballs and the recipe for the sauce. But you can swap out any one or all three of those ingredients for something very quick. So focus on things that you want to make from scratch, but don't be afraid to sub in some other items.
[00:07:43] Darin There's never been a better time of artisanal Italian product makers, even in the States, for making great dried pasta and cheeses. I find more in
[00:07:51] Danny or even just at the regular supermarket. Better olive oils, better vinegars, better balsamic glaze. You can usually find some good items out there to add to your collection.
[00:07:59] Darin Now, speaking of olive oils, this last rule of yours is something that I definitely didn't expect, but it's something you say not to be afraid of. What's rule number five?
[00:08:08] Danny Rule number five, this is the one I get the most in trouble for online. It's don't be afraid of butter. Controversial, I'm sure. Controverial. Here in America, we think of olive oil when it comes to Italian food and Italian-American cooking, which is true. I use a lot of olive and whenever I use a little bit of butter in any dish and I post online, people are aghast. Like you cannot use butter, that's not the way it's done. What I have learned after reading a lot of Italian cookbooks and talking with a lot of people in Italy is that... A lot of the olive oil culture comes from southern Italy, where a lot of immigrants came from to the United States. But in northern Italy, where it's closer to Switzerland and France, they're not as afraid of using butter in some dishes or having butter-based dishes. For example, I posted a recipe by a famous Italian chef, Marcella Hazan. She uses butter in her tomato sauce. People were so upset when I posted that, but I read her recipe and she said, this is how my mother made it back in Italy. One of my favorite ways to use butter very easily is after you make pasta, you drain the pasta and you have your sauce. I especially like to do this with like a pesto. Just put in a pad of butter into the pasta. The heat from the pasta will melt to add the sauce. As the butter's melting and the sauce is all coming together, it just helps make the sauce... A little just a touch of cream a little bit silky even though it's Italian food don't be afraid of a little but of butter mixed in there
[00:09:23] Darin Danny, congratulations. I know the book is out August 26, but pre-orders are up and available now if people want to pre-order the book, where can they go?
[00:09:32] Danny You can get the book anywhere. Books are sold. You can go to Amazon, Barnes& Noble, Target. For preorders, I'm selling signed copies through my local bookstore. The bookstore is called Stanza, and you can get signed copy shipped to you.
[00:09:43] Darin Amazing and if people want to see your content because I know that you've already been doing a couple of recipes on Instagram and TikTok from the book which have been fantastic to watch and gets me very excited for it to come out. Where can they go?
[00:09:53] Danny You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, all at Danny Loves Pasta.
[00:09:57] Darin Congratulations and I can't wait to get the hard copy of the book.
[00:10:01] Danny Thank you, good talking with you.
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