Italian Food

It amazes me as to what some people consider as good Italian food. Folks in northern New Jersey are incredibly spoiled by the amount of quality Italian restaurants we have at our disposal. And a short hop into the city broadens our choices even more. When I travel to other parts of the country I am always very skeptical of the "Best Italian Restaurant" in town. If they were to open in our neck of the woods, they wouldn't stay in business for six months. Mushy pasta with canned sauces just don't do it for me.
I love to cook Italian recipes at home, and it is a passion of mine to collect Italian regional cookbooks. I currently have around 50 different books and I am always on the look out for new ones. I especially like regional cooking that we don't often seen prepared in our local restaurants. Cooking from Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, Le Marche, Sicliy and others, contain recipes that use their local ingredients and their own unique flavors. The food in different regions is as different as the wines from different regions.
The vast majority of Americans think of spaghetti and meatballs as Italian food. One of my favorite movies is "The Big Night", about two brothers from Italy running a struggling restaurant serving traditional food. The following clip from the movie shows how they deal with the typical American customer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URdCltP8rqA
Stanley Tucci and Tony Shaloub deliver great performances in this movie. I owe my friend "Mr. Meatball" credit for this clip, as he has used it on his very entertaining blog. I strongly recommend you visit him at;
http://mistermeatball.blogspot.com/
He never fails to get laugh from me, as well as teach me something new.