Bringing Tuscany at Home with Gabriele Corcos, The Tuscan Gun

Seating at the dinner table every evening is the golden moment of our family, as we have a very hectic schedule, especially when Debi is on set. In my pantry, you always find Italian food staples like good quality olive oil and vinegar, nothing fancy as I like cucina povera, a no-waste cooking tradition from rural Italy. I prepare soups, farro, pasta with ragù, pesto sauce, or whatever I find in the fridge, all things that reference Tuscan cuisine. I make my own sourdough bread every other day, as I miss the bakeries from back home. However, things have changed in the past few years, and it is increasingly easy to find good ingredients in New York.

When I lived in Los Angeles, most of my shopping was in supermarkets, there were very few artisanal shops and you had to spend a lot of money to find things like fresh mozzarella, it was very elitist. Here, we have now a great access of seasonal ingredients visiting farmers markets such as the one in Union Square, of course, and the one on the Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn on Saturdays—even if in winter the choice is more limited to products such as vinegar, honey, apples and kale, and maybe chestnuts and purple cabbage. Whole Foods gives you an interesting shopping experience, even if I resist buying cherries and apricots in January. It is nice to have whatever you want whenever you want, but I feel that it doesn't work well with our body, and it robs me of the joy of finding the first summer fruits in June, something that I remember from my childhood when my mother brought them back from the market.

As I was brought up in the hills of Tuscany, the price of wine in this country seems crazy to me, but I discovered and really appreciated artisanal beer. I hope to produce it in Italy one day, using all the flavors of our land, as we do when making honey and herbal teas. While I miss some of the Italian charcuterie that can't be imported to the US for food regulations, I have to say that New York has amazing butchers. The meat quality is often better from what we have in Italy, especially from the pastures Montana, Minnesota, and the farms from Upstate New York that make great pork. United Meat Market, owned by two brothers from Calabria in my Prospect Park neighborhood, has changed my life (in 219 Prospect Park West). Beside high quality meat, you can find so many imported Italian items at affordable prices such as our favorite Galletti and Abbracci cookies from Mulino Bianco, Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano, Sicilian orange juice, pelati (peeled tomatoes for sauce), and fresh ravioli from Arthur Avenue. I feel that Brooklyn still allows you to build relationships with the shop owners, something impossible in many city centers, Florence included, where artisanal shops such as antique libraries are being taken over by ice cream shops, big chains, and luxury stores.

When we go out, we tend not to eat Italian food, as my wife doesn't like to hear me criticizing the cuisine... However, I do love Il Posto Accanto in the Lower East Side, it makes me feel at home. We try different types of cuisine, and lately, I became a big fan of oysters and New England clam chowder. New York is such a high speed that you don't really have time to enjoy the moments, as we do in Italy. You go in and out of restaurants. Food crazes and diets become popular and dissipate from one year to the other.

I had a restaurant in Brooklyn for five years, and while for the first three were fun and exciting, by the fourth, it was repetitive, and at the end, I had enough. It became about paying the rent and the employees and selling as much food as possible. It wasn't what I envisioned. I also find the city unfair, everything is expensive, and creating the type of experience that I wanted to share would have been a luxurious one, but it is not what Tuscan food is about. When I closed, I had 2200 people on our waiting list, but I couldn't imagine making the same meals over and over. For my guests, to truly understand the real Tuscan way of life, they have to come live with me, which is why I decided to direct my work towards building a hotel centered on food close to where I grew up in Tuscany.

I already found an interesting property that has an organic farm, so I would be able to start off right as certifications in Europe take four to five years. I also started gathering material to write a new book, possibly on cooking for the four seasons, for which I plan to do my own photography. I am happiest when I can prepare recipes passed on my mother and grandmother, making food for my family and my friends. I try to explain to my followers that the food is as good as the love that you make it with; it is not always a matter of technique, ingredients, or cost. It is about the smiles and happiness that you get from the people you feed.

As told to Carole Hallac

Gabriele Corcos' portrait

Gabriele Corcos, The Tuscan Gun, is a Tuscan born TV host, producer, New York Times best-selling author, and food and technology entrepreneur. Best known for his James Beard Award-winning TV shows "Extra Virgin" and "Extra Virgin – Americana" on the Cooking Channel in the United States and on Food Network International, Gabriele always has used food to bring people together, to celebrate, to initiate a conversation, to spark ideas. Fascinated by the intersection of food and technology, Gabriele has turned that passion into the Facebook web series "Counter Talk Live," and his new Podcast "Future Bites: what and how you'll be eating in the future" in the Summer of 2018 on the Cumulus Media and OG Podcast Network platforms. Gabriele investigates the change that is happening in the kitchen; from the way we source and prepare food to smart appliances and alternative ingredients, all that sifted through a whole new way of communicating and engaging the audience in an immersive way. His exploration has led him to win a VR Broadcast Award at Las Vegas' CES, host a panel at SXSW 2018 in Austin, and make appearances at festivals and tech conferences worldwide. Gabriele is also husband, father of two, and Ducati rider.