PASTA. Noodles. Spaghetti. It is often one of the simplest meals you can make. On weeknights we often find ourselves tucking into a bowl of the comfort food, as it is fast and delicious.

But the world of pasta is a very big world. In Italy, each region, sometimes each town, has it’s own specialties.  Pasta that is served nightly on tables in Naples will never see the light of day in Milan.

Each pasta shape was created to pair with a certain sauce. Once you start learning how to properly prepare pasta, your world can change.

Where is where The Silver Spoon Pasta, from the powerhouse publishers Phaidon, comes in handy. An encyclopedia of knowledge about this product can be found in its pages. With beautiful photography and recipes from basic to gourmet, it is the definitive source on pasta varieties and recipes.

We like to play “pasta roulette” with this book. Randomly open a page, and BAM – make that for dinner. There are 360 recipes, so you only need to find none-pasta meals for five days a year. You can pick up a pasta starter kit at Via Umbria, and then get cracking in the kitchen.

A tavola!

– Via Umbria