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Categories
| La Dolce Vita |
| Lifestyle | |||
| Written by Elaine Lau | |||
| Tuesday, 12 May 2009 10:55 | |||
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We are seated at the lobby lounge of the InterContinental Hotel in Singapore, where Rocco was in town for the recent World Gourmet Summit. A few nights prior to the interview, Rocco had hosted a dinner at the hotel where he cooked up some of his best-known dishes, such as drunken spaghetti, zuppa di crostacei with parsley rouille, and braised oxtail with roasted aubergines, tomato and olive emulsion, caramelised fennel and potato dauphinoise. Rocco looks effortlessly stylish dressed in jeans, a white shirt and faded green jacket. But lines of tiredness are evident under his eyes, and he tells me that he’s had a full week and is feeling a little under the weather. Even so, his whole face lights up and his voice gets animated when he talks about his passion — Italian food. You cannot help but get drawn into his world and feel excited with him. Of course, his boyish good looks, electrifying smile and charming persona have a lot to do with it as well. “My training is by no means professional,” he says, “but I feel that sometimes it’s the best because it’s based on tradition and good food. I often say I’m not a chef; I’m Italian — it’s kind of in my DNA. From the beginning, essentially what drew me to the kitchen was, I love cooking, I love to eat. Food is an important part of the family. I am always surrounded by it, so I think based on that, it was an obvious expansion to start cooking — well, for me, anyway. I find it very creative and fun, and it’s just a great escape.” Rocco started cooking at a young age, preparing meals for himself and his two older siblings. “I’m the youngest of three, and our mom worked so we handled our own meals. My older brother and sister were not into it as much as I. They were more just there to monitor to make sure I wasn’t burning down the house,” he laughs.  One of his favourite dishes to make is a simple one of poached egg in tomato sauce. “My mom makes great tomato sauce. I would get a frying pan, heat some of the sauce, crack a couple of eggs in, add some cheese, shut it off, put the lid on and let it poach. Literally, a six-year-old could do this, and do it with fantastic results. To me, it wasn’t cooking, just throwing some things together. It helps that my mom’s tomato sauce was pretty damn good,” he quips. Simple, non-fussy food is really Rocco’s signature. His recently launched cookbook, David Rocco’s Dolce Vita, is full of recipes that adhere to his philosophy of simplicity and using the best seasonal ingredients one can find. It is also what you find him advocating in his television series of the same name, the fourth season of which is currently in post-production and will premiere at the end of the year on Discovery Travel and Living. While Dolce Vita was the programme that most of us first became acquainted with this vibrant cooking personality, Rocco actually starred and produced in another series previously, called Avventura. As he tells it, he graduated from university with an economics degree, but he was not keen on a nine-to-five desk job. So, he and his wife packed off to Italy. “In Italy, where we had some friends there, we shot something for fun, came back and got our wedding videographer to edit,” he says. They then pitched it to a TV production company and soon after, was signed for 26 episodes. The rest, as they say, is history. Rocco’s current show, Dolce Vita, a series that he describes as “very organic”, is shot on location in Italy and is a guide on all things Italian with a starting point in food, of course. Rocco talks about how the series has evolved from season to season. “I look at season one versus season two, and they are dramatically different. Season three is also very different, and season four has totally moved on to a whole different direction because as a host, as producers, we’ve changed. In season one, we were living in Florence, living this fun and crazy life, but now in season four, we have twin daughters who are one year old in a farmhouse in the countryside. So, yes, it gives a different dimension to the show. It’s the best season yet, not because my daughters are in there but it has a lot of heart,” he says. Rocco adds that the fourth season of Dolce Vita is a throwback to peasant cooking. “Now with the economy and people thinking more about health, the timing of the show is perfect. It illustrates the simplicity of Italian cooking, using ingredients from your garden, and reusing things like stale bread,” he says. Good Italian food begins with good ingredients, a most crucial one of which is fine extra virgin olive oil. “Good extra virgin olive oil can really elevate a dish — I call it my Italian MSG,” quips Rocco. “Some of the finer olive oils are very expensive, so I’m not suggesting people use it for every single thing. I have sometimes three olive oils: a basic extra virgin one which is decent for frying, a medium one for tossing salads and a fantastic one for drizzling over crostini or just appetisers that you want to add a final finish to. And it is just fantastic.” A good grasp of the fundamentals and a philosophy called “quanto basta” are the two components of cooking Italian food, says Rocco. (The Italian phrase is similar to what Malaysians put it, “agak-agak”.) “It is very common in Italian cooking folk wisdom. It’s about cooking by eye, by instinct and how much you like of one thing. If you can learn the base of Italian cooking, then you can have the creative freedom to use that quanto basta. And it’s really liberating,” says Rocco, adding that most of his recipes are “based on tradition, experience and having tasted recipes throughout Italy”. Besides his TV series, Rocco is busy working on his second cookbook and in crafting a cooking course for schools with the Canadian government. The programme started with the intention of removing trans fat from school cafeterias, but Rocco came up with the proposal of not merely removing unhealthy foods but equipping children with the skills of preparing their own meals. “We started a pilot programme in four schools, and so far, so good,” he says. “Initially, they wanted me to teach younger students but I said we have to teach seniors in high schools because they are the trendsetters for the juniors, the tweens and the six-year-olds. We have to get to the role models, and really, it’s a life skill. When they leave high school and go to college, you’re leaving them with a life skill. And I really want to make that connection with these youths, make cooking hip and cool for them. It’s been interesting, but there are some things to be ironed out still.” It is touching to see a side to Rocco other than as celebrity host of a hit travel and food show. His desire to help teenagers in Canada make better food choices, comes off as truly heartfelt. “Hopefully, we’ll have an example for other school systems in other countries,” he says. We wish him the very best. This article appeared on the Live it! page, The Edge Financial Daily, May 12, 2009.
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