Luke’s Diner: Buon Appetito

I Am all in Again, Luke Steiner with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast.

Nadia Katerina Munno, known as the Pasta Queen. Here she is live in Living Color. She's an Italian chef, author, social media star celebrated for her authentic Italian cooking. Born in Rome, Italy into a family with a rich culinary heritage, she rose to fame sharing pasta reps, fees and tips online,

Yes? I have?

What do you think?

It's lovely?

Lovely?

Lovely?

Yes, very very touching, lots of giggles, crying and yeah.

It's a feel good show.

Good old fashioned American values right there.

Yes.

Yeah. Do you think, Nadia that there are foods that work best for a romantic first date?

Yes?

What? What would those be? You know, what would the Italian take be on food and romance?

I think the first thing, obviously, I think it's iconic is the vasta shape the spaghetti because it's very romantic and you can share it as well.

As a lot of your Instagram photos the test there are.

Yeah, and it's kind of romantic but also kind of like sassy. You know, all the greatest and most igonic pictures of women eating pastas, They're not eating pin They're eating spaghetti right right, got a.

Little bit of an appeal.

And I always think of something spicy, not too spicy, but with tomato and spice.

For our first date.

Now, if you don't like tomatoes, which is you know, very unlikely, you can always do like a creamy lemon spaghetti, very delegate and special.

And there is that iconic photo that I've seen those throwback photos and it's I mean, who is it, Sophie l Wren? Is it with with the pasta?

And oh yeah, so yellow.

Italian stars.

Yeah, all of the great iconic I think there's Marilyn Monroe.

Is sure everybody seem.

Everybody as is the spaghetti.

Un and and quite brilliant that that you borrowed from that. Yes, it's just like it's it's I remember those photos growing up, and then when I saw your Instagram page, I went, ah, that's fantastic, that's really smart. Yeah.

I mean I come like from I come from the south of Italy, were a lot more down towards I mean, I'm not supposed to say that, but it's the truth. There's a lot more farmers very in touch with nature.

You know.

I come from a long line of farmers back to the seventeen hundreds, and I think it's, uh, we grow up seeing all those iconic movies mixed with soap operas, so you go iconic Felini movies with soap operas. So you got drama, style and classic beauty all at once and pastaway in all the things I love into one.

So you're a very cultured country girl. We would call we would call that a country girl in the United States.

You know I'm a country girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a country girl. Right.

So let's get into you a little more. What inspired you to create a culinary travel series.

I think it's basically like the story of my family's tradition.

And in the series, you see.

All of my family, my grandmother's, my cousins, uncles, brothers, sisters, kids, everybody's in it. There's a lot of episodes that I where I go around with my dad and and it's really the foundation pasta guins. So even the regions that you see that we explore, it's four different regions are all the regions that taught me how to.

Cook from a very early age.

I was born and raised in Rome, but I also lived for several formative years down near Naples. So all those regions have everything that explain why I do what I do now and what I love and my style.

Of all those different regions you've traveled through definitely influences I believed.

I've believed uh and and they taught me how to cook my style of cooking. You know Italy, it's very regional cooking all over from the north to the south.

And the way pasta green is she's a Southern.

Italian girl with the with the with some you know, extra.

Belzo with you.

You can tell a story every time you're cooking in a particular region. You can tell the story of that dish.

Oh yes, yes, fascinating.

So you can prepare that dish and entertain everybody with the origin story of the dish and the ingredients. So that's fat.

Yeah, I think you would really love it.

No, I lived in Italy for a little bit. I traveled a little bit through Italy. I was in Milan, I was in Como, I was in Fenenza.

Yeah.

Just absolutely gorgeous, man, it really is. It's just beautiful. And that that was a long time ago. So okay. So Laurelai and Rory's love for food is almost like a ritual as food becomes for most people. So how important are food rituals like family dinners and pizza nice in Italian culture? Tell us the real story?

I mean, we are We're mostly about food, thank coffee, just like Laurela and Rory.

So we've got we've got.

I mean the misority of the day, I would say, especially where I come from in the South, we spend many hours of the day eating food and and it's a religious thing for us to spend Sundays together with with multi generations of family members, and we eat a lot, just like.

You know, and gilmore girls, the fun and the.

Joy and not being ashamed of eating with passion, you know.

Right, And that's every Sunday, and that's every every family member that's available in that area. Multiple people cooking in the kitcheners everybody, multiple.

Multiple people usually at least three generations in the kitchen.

In the kitchen, all helping each other out.

Grandmother, the mother, and the kids.

You know, my cousins cook with me, and and then we have the parents and grandparents. Sometimes great grandparents too. If you're lucky, you get the great grandparents too.

When done right, there's nothing like being in the presence of an Italian family that's serving you food and cooking you food, and it's like loving you through every second of that surface and that that that expression. It's just amazing. There's there. There was an experience I had in Louisville, Kentucky, an Italian restaurant from a from a guy from Naples, and he yes, crazy, it was the best experience.

My god, they're so passionate.

He brought out every dish in the kitchen and we were like stuffed. We're like, no, we can't take it anymore. He goes, no, no, no, no, no, there's more. There's more.

I mean, especially if you acknowledge them.

Yeah, and you kind of might compliment them that's the end.

They will just keep all right.

Because we were celebrat raiding him and his family, because his two daughters were there and his wife, and it was just this explosion of joy throughout the entire I mean it was like three hours.

We were in there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's that's so Roco.

If you're listening, we love you, buddy, and we're coming back to Louisville. Tell you that, man, is there a pasta dish that you think is underrated and deserves more attention?

Underrated? Maybe I'm adri Shana.

I don't know if you've ever had it. It's basically, uh like a tomato based carbon rap without without the egg and the eggs. It's Piggorino is one Charlie big on seazealed tomatoes, chili pappers smoked with white wine. Sometimes you put onions and then you have the big Orino romano. She is kind of melted into it, and you have to have it with bugadiivasta, which is another lovely basta shape that is I think super sassy and romantic.

How just a personal question, and you don't have to answer this, how often do you cook at home? I mean you have a family. I know you have daughters and every day.

Yeah, so do they know how lucky they are?

They know?

Yes, I mean now that some of my kids are older, they realized because they spend many times, you know, with friends at friends houses, and they finally caught.

On the like they're blessed.

Yes, And uh, let me ask you this. What's been the most rewarding part of sharing your recipes and connecting with people online?

Making people happy?

H And when I say making people happy, it's like, I think even getting them out of, you know, sad situations. And I've been told many times when I do meet and reads or book tours and they're like, oh, I was really in a bad place.

You know, they had.

A loss in the family, or they lost their job, or during COVID there was several like situations as well as day do day stressfulness. Really and somehow there's so many people And I didn't realize this until I was told they're like just tuning in even though I don't cook, you make me happy.

And I forget about my problems. And I was like, WHOA. I didn't realize. I had not realized that is there.

If someone is new to Italian cooking. What is the first recipe from your book that you would recommend?

Spaghetti alpom doto and basil, simple, very quick, ten to fifteen minutes to make. But if you make it like how I make it, which I was stopped by a Michelin star Neapolidan chef, it would be the most unforgivable tomato and basils spaghetti you've ever had.

Unforgettable, unforgivable, and I forgettable.

All right, here here's a Gilmore question. Okay, if you had to create a Gilmore Girls themed pizza, okay, what toppings would reflect Lorelei and Rory's personalities?

Probably a capriciosa.

You know, we ever Roman, a Roman pizza called the Capricious Pizza. And it's got on it mushrooms, even eggs, salame, tomato, mozarella, artisokes, olives.

I mean we're talking sometimes, audience. It's a capricious pizza.

It's got a multi personality of sweet, punchy, spicy.

You know, with a bits of margarita. So it's got all of it.

Man, I'm hungry. All right, here we go. Last question. If you were coming to Luke Steiner, what would you order and where would you sit.

Looks Doina, what would I order them? What would I see? I have to think about that.

If you answer this question correctly, you could get recruited into the CIA. So just keep that in mind.

Okay, So I would sin seems I got Unfortunately, I got addicted to burgers being in the US for nine years. I would sit by the window and eat a beautiful burger.

Nice.

Okay, you will. You may get a call from Langley that you might go. You might, you might, you might be a CIA operative. We just don't know. That was a perfect perfect.

Oh did I answer correctly?

Well, there's really no correct answer, but that kind of hit it out of the park.

I gotta tell you, well, you know, yeah, you know, that's kind of my gifty pleasure that I literally love burgers, but nobody knows. So if I was a Looks diner, I would be by the window eating a burger.

You can come by any time, anytime, Na. Katerina Muno the pasta Queen, and everybody run out get her book, The pasta Queen a just watch her show on Prime. What's the name of the show again, The Pasta Queen on Prime? Thank you so much for your time and please, since we were so limited on time and you're you're crazy busy, please come back, please, please.

Anytime you want, anytime you want.

Thank you so much, all.

The thank you. Have a lovely rest of your week.

You all right, Happy, Happy Christmas, Verry Christmas. You do, marry, greasy merry Christmas.

All right? Bye, bye, hey everybody, and talk again.

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