Italian

Cacio e Pepe For this recipe, you need to grate the cheese with the ragged-edged holes of a box grater for ease of melting. Don't use the small teardrop-shaped holes or a rasp, as your cheese will clump up in the bowl.

Danny Toma of Naples, Italy, writes: "As an expatriate southerner working in Italy, I created this recipe to combine my Mississippi roots with my temporary Italian home." This recipe makes a large quantity of pesto. Use half the pesto for 1 pound of cooked pasta and chill the rest in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Be sure to use fresh ricotta cheese from an Italian market — authentic ricotta has the rich, dense texture that's best for this recipe. Make the rolls one day ahead so the flavors can develop. Serve with marinara sauce for dipping.

If you love spaghetti and meatballs, then you'll love this upmarket rendition featuring perciatelli-long, hollow pasta. The noodles are topped with a rich tomato and porcini mushroom sauce, and meatballs made with ground veal, Italian sausage and more porcini. Start things off with an antipasto platter of olive, assorted marinated vegetables and cured meats. Offer breadsticks alongside, and pour a full-bodied Chianti.

For a curved tuile-like shape, these cookies may be draped over a rolling pin after their second baking, while they are still warm. If the cookies become too brittle to form on the rolling pin, return baking sheets to oven for a few seconds to allow the cookies to soften.

Zabaglione, the Italian custard made of egg yolks, Marsala and sugar, is used as a frozen filling for a crunchy macaroon crust.

A simple all-purpose tomato sauce that's perfect over pasta as well as meats and seafood. Prepare a double batch and freeze the extra to have for another time.

Not a Mexican salsa, this Italian "green sauce" is made of fresh basil, parsley, garlic and a big splash of vermouth. Swirled atop the cheese mixture, the salsa verde adds a lovely marbled effect to the fondue.

(Fiori di Zucca Ripieni) Of all the aspects of Tuscan cuisine, not one stands out as much as its overwhelming variety of fresh vegetables. Zucchini is a favorite, of course, and so are the blossoms. The sweet, succulent flowers are prepared in countless ways, including fried, sautéed and, as in the following recipe, stuffed and baked. If you don't have zucchini in your garden, look for the blossoms in the supermarket or at a farmers' market. They are usually sold still attached to baby zucchini, which is how they are used in this recipe.

Crusty Italian bread and mixed greens with a red wine vinaigrette are good with the pasta. Afterward, put out big strawberries and bowls of mascarpone cheese (or sour cream) and brown sugar for dipping.

(Arrosto di Agnello alla Toscana) Roasted meats are simple by definition, and in Tuscany they are not just simple, but pure and filled with flavor, too. Lamb is one of the Tuscans' favorite meats to roast. The seasonings in this recipe reflect the Tuscan countryside, with its wild rosemary and the aroma of garlic in the air. Though garlic is ever-present in the cooking, it is generally used in moderation so that it doesn't overpower the other flavors.

This pasta dish originated in the region of Lazio, not Tuscany. However, it is popular throughout Italy — and America — today.

(Panna Cotta con Salsa di Fragole al Vin Santo) As tiramisù became the Italian restaurant dessert of the 1980s, so did panna cotta take over in the 1990s. The original recipe for "cooked cream" comes from Piedmont, but Tuscans have appropriated it. Their version of the eggless custard is often topped with honey and pine nuts, since the Tuscan city of Pisa is Europe's largest producer of pinoli. This recipe incorporates those ingredients into the custard, then tops it off with a delicious strawberry sauce laced with Vin Santo, the cherished dessert wine of the region. Begin making this one day ahead.

Breakfast in Italy is a sweet and simple affair that typically consists of a cup of cappuccino and a pastry. This cake is like tender shortbread.

(Pollo alla Diavola) This entrée, a specialty of Florence, can be found at restaurants throughout Tuscany. If you see alla diavola on an Italian menu, it means that dish will be slightly spicy. Chicken alla diavola is usually flattened, then blackened on a grill or under the broiler, but the same technique works well on the stove, too. This recipe uses game hens to stand in for the smaller chickens of Tuscany, and a heavy pot takes the place of the brick.