This segment is titled: The problem with the word "Best"

Often, participants in my cooking school ask me about my favorite restaurant in Rhode Island or want to know which place I think is the best. I hesitate to provide a straightforward answer, as I firmly believe that culinary preferences and dining experiences are inherently subjective.

Let me tell you a story about taste - that most personal yet most hotly debated of human experiences. Picture this: you're sitting across from a friend at that hot new restaurant everyone's raving about, the one the local food critic crowned "the absolute best Italian in the city." Your fork twists through handmade pasta while your friend takes their first bite of the same dish. Here's the strange truth - you're not tasting the same thing. Not really. While you savor what might be the most perfect al dente texture you've ever experienced, your dining companion, through no fault of their own or the chef's, might be having a completely different sensory encounter. This isn't just about differing opinions; it's about the very biology that makes us human.

The illusion of objective taste begins to unravel when we peer into the science of our senses. That cilantro garnish dividing the table between lovers and haters? Blame a tiny genetic variation. How can your partner detect subtle floral notes in wine while you taste "red"? Thank your unique combination of taste receptors and saliva enzymes. Even professional tasters with trained palates experience this - their expertise lies not in some universal truth, but in recognizing how their particular physiology interprets flavors. Yet our food culture remains stubbornly attached to absolutes, to definitive rankings and undisputed champions.

We've created entire industries around declaring "bests" and "worsts" in a realm where such judgments are biologically impossible to standardize.

Consider the curious case of the food critic - that mysterious figure whose pronouncements can make or break restaurants. How did we decide that someone who's never reduced a sauce until their arms ached, never balanced flavors while tickets piled up, never felt the burn of a busy kitchen's heat, gets to be the ultimate arbiter of culinary worth? There's something fundamentally unbalanced about a system where chefs spend decades mastering their craft only to be judged by those who've mastered little more than the art of the takedown review. The rise of social media has only amplified this paradox, turning every enthusiastic eater with a smartphone into a self-appointed expert.

We've confused consumption with understanding, as if eating at enough trendy spots somehow equates to culinary wisdom.

But here's the beautiful truth buried beneath all this posturing: your taste is yours alone. Not the critic's, not the influencer's, not even that friend who insists they have "refined" preferences. Authentic food culture isn't about chasing someone else's idea of perfection - it's about the joy of discovering what sings to your unique palate. Maybe that means loving the neighborhood diner's burger more than the celebrated gastropub's dry-aged version. Perhaps it involves preferring simple, honest cooking over elaborate tasting menus.

The most meaningful meals aren't those deemed "the best" by some external standard, but those that resonate with your personal history, your memories, your physiology. The taste of your grandmother's apple pie, the aroma of your favorite childhood dish-these are the flavors that genuinely matter. So the next time you encounter another breathless declaration of culinary supremacy, smile knowingly.

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This segment is titled: Fueling Olympians with a Mountain of Pasta, and The Delicious Chaos of Eating Like an Olympian in Italy.

While here in Rhode Island we are buried under a pile of senseless snow, picture yourself walking into the Olympic Village in Milan or breathing in the fresh mountain air of Corteena d'Ampezzo during the Milano Corteena 2026 Winter Games. After a tough training session, you're drawn to the dining hall, ready for a meal packed with carbs, protein, and plenty of Italian flavor. Unlike previous Olympic events like Sochi or PyeongChang, where food blandness left much to be desired, here the menu is so tasty that athletes are sharing pizza reviews on social media, acting like Michelin inspectors. I am writing this piece as I have cooked at four Winter Olympics myself, starting with Salt Lake City in 2002, and can tell you firsthand what really goes on in those hall kitchens. I vividly remember one busy evening in Salt Lake City when the Canadian ski team stood, eagerly facing a mountain of pappardelle pasta. With the power out due to a snowstorm, we hurriedly improvised under emergency lights, turning the situation into a spontaneous culinary adventure. The athletes gathered around, laughing and joking, as we created a makeshift assembly line, cutting pasta with whatever tools were on hand. It was a moment of delicious chaos, blending the thrill of the games with the camaraderie that emerges over a shared plate of flour and eggs. Those are the moments that make cooking at the Olympics unforgettable.

Imagine something like up to 4,500 meals whipped up daily in the Milan hub alone, nearly 4,000 in Corteena, and another 2,300 in Predazzo. That's a mountain of pasta, with around 600 kilograms dished out each day. To put that into perspective, it's enough to fuel approximately 1,200 downhill runs, underscoring the athletes' immense calorie needs. Athletes swarm the carb stations like kids at a candy store, loading plates with spaghetti, gnocchi, fettuccine, and lasagna. One American freestyler declared she's had "the best pasta I've ever had here," while others admit to smashing entire pizzas post-practice. South African cross-country skier Matt Smith is on a mission, rating a quattro formaggi pizza an impressive 8.5/10 (lasagna got a polite "good"), and even scored a custom South African flag pizza topped with herbs and cured meats. Talk about personalized fueling! And for a sprinkle of quirky trivia, the most popular midnight snack among athletes is a surprising choice: Nutella-stuffed croissants, while the oddest request, hands down, was for spaghetti covered in chocolate sauce, proving their adventurous and unusual taste buds.

The Canadian women's hockey team can't get enough focaccia, and sometimes bread is more popular than pasta. Their plates are loaded with pasta in meat sauce, fresh mozzarella, burrata, Parmigiano, and grilled proteins like chicken, turkey, veal, beef, salmon, or white fish. There are also vegetables and fruit for balance, and one player joked, "They're coming, OK?" But when you're burning thousands of calories on the ice or in the snow, a little extra cheese is just part of the deal. That extra cheese provides quick glycogen replenishment and boosts calcium intake for bone health. This indulgence aligns with a periodized nutrition strategy, where cycles of load, perform, and recover are carefully planned to ensure optimal performance over time.

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This segment is titled "The History of Mascarpone Cheese."

The history of mascarpone cheese, that luxuriously creamy Italian dairy product often hailed as the star ingredient in tiramisu and other indulgent desserts, is rooted in the fertile dairy traditions of northern Italy, particularly the Lombardy region south of Milan, where rich pastures, abundant cow's milk, and centuries of cheesemaking expertise have long thrived. Emerging during the Renaissance era, likely in the late 16th or early 17th century—though some sources trace references as far back as the 15th century with mentions in texts like the 1477 Summa Lacticinorum by Pantaleone da Confienza—mascarpone developed as a practical way for local farmers and dairymen to utilize the abundant fresh cream skimmed from whole milk, especially in areas like Lodi, Abbiategrasso, and the lower Po Valley, where the landscape's lush grasses, herbs, and flowers nourished high-quality milk production. Unlike traditional cheeses that rely on rennet coagulation of milk and aging, mascarpone is technically not a cheese at all in the strictest sense but a fresh dairy cream product made through acid-heat coagulation: heavy cream (typically from pasteurized cow's milk) is gently heated to around 85–90°C, then acidified with citric acid, tartaric acid (often from wine barrel residues), or sometimes acetic acid or lemon juice, causing the fats and proteins to separate and curdle into soft, velvety curds that are drained through cheesecloth or muslin, resulting in its signature ivory-white color, smooth spreadable texture, mild sweet-tart flavor, and exceptionally high fat content—often 60–75% or more on a dry basis, giving it that buttery richness and luxurious mouthfeel.

The name "mascarpone" itself remains a subject of delightful etymological debate, with no single definitive origin but several charming theories reflecting the region's linguistic and historical layers. One popular explanation links it to "mascherpa" or "mascarpia," a Lombard dialect term for ricotta or a similar whey-based product, highlighting the shared simple coagulation process between the two, though mascarpone uses cream rather than whey or milk. Another theory, favored by Lombard writer Gianni Brera, suggests that the fuller form "mascherpone" derives from "Cascina Mascherpa," a historic farmstead or locality in the borderlands between the provinces of Lodi, Milan, and Pavia, in the fertile Bassa Padana. A more romantic, if less substantiated, tale attributes it to the Spanish phrase "más que bueno" ("better than good"), an exclamation supposedly uttered by a Spanish noble during the period of Spanish domination in Milan (16th–18th centuries), praising the decadent treat. Regardless of its linguistic roots, mascarpone was traditionally a seasonal product, crafted mainly in winter when cream was plentiful and perishable goods easier to handle in cooler climates, and it carried the Prodotto Agroalimentare Tradizionale (P.A.T.) designation from the Italian government, recognizing it as a traditional agricultural food product tied to Lombardy without the stricter geographical protections of PDO status—meaning it can now be produced anywhere while still honoring its northern Italian heritage.

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