The Chef's Voice: Francesco Buitoni of Mercato Tivolio

I cook because I love to eat and find pleasure in comforting others with good food. My culinary journey began in Italy, a land rich in exceptional ingredients and a fanatic food culture. We Italians live to eat. We even have a saying that one never grows old by sitting at the table. In fact, the word table, "tavola, "refers to sitting down and eating, the only way one really eats in Italy: Tutti a tavola,—"Everyone to the table!" In Italy family and food are the two most important facets of life, whether you are rich or poor you eat well, and with your family.

I am lucky to have been exposed to great food since I was young, as food has been my family's livelihood for some time. My father's family started Buitoni Pasta in 1827 and later purchased Perugina. My mother's family had a wheat farm outside of Rome and I spent lots of time there since my mother did a lot of traveling. It was here that the seed for my culinary career was planted.

Nonna Sandra, my maternal grandmother, was a great influence on me. As a child on her farm, about 45 kilometers north of Rome, in an area once inhabited by the Etruscans and later by the Romans, I explored ruins and underground tunnels in hopes of finding great treasures. Alas, most of the treasures had been taken by tomb robbers decades earlier. Still, I managed to find fragments of pottery and mosaics. The most exciting discovery on the farm was a statue unearthed by the farm workers. Fortunately or unfortunately, it mysteriously disappeared: in Italy everything below the ground, including natural resources, is property of the government. The last thing you want is for them to come and sequester a large piece of land and start an archaeological dig.

If I hadn't become a chef I would have become an archaeologist, or a farmer. But Nonna loved to cook and taught me that if I wanted to eat well I too would have to learn how to cook. I learned while I watched her and I haven't stopped learning or cooking since. The secret of her food and mine is no secret—use what is available in your backyard, season as to not mask the flavor of your ingredients and voila, you have a great meal.

I've spent my whole life living between Rome and New York and consider both places home. People always ask me: which place do you like better? I answer that I love Italy for its food and the US for its freedom. As a result, I have a good grasp on both cultures, especially in matters of food. I think too often people in this country are more concerned about the quantity of food they get for their money rather than the quality and variety. In Italy our portions are smaller and a meal consists of a variety of dishes. Restaurants don't offer one-plate meals—a meat, a starch and a vegetable; instead you order each item separately, and for good reason: Italians don't want someone else to decide how their meal comes together. Also, in Italy, we don't have doggy bags at restaurants because there are no leftovers—a meal is consumed in its entirety, as long as it takes to be eaten. . . in a timeless manner. If you want a small meal, fine, have a panino at a bar, but don't confuse that with a real meal (a bar in Italy is not a drinking place, but a place to have a coffee or a snack). Finally, in Italy, there are no such things as "kids' meals": you eat what your parents eat, and as a result you develop your palate at an early age.

The food that we ate on the farm in Italy was always in season and just harvested— how can you go wrong when such amazing ingredients are available to you? I love that as well about the Hudson Valley: there is such a bounty of wonderful ingredients available—during the growing season, and even in the winter, and there are so many farmers and residents who pursue happiness through food. The food I offer at Mercato Tivolio is straightforward—I begin with good, simple ingredients and let each ingredient express its own flavor. I want to be able to taste the arugula and taste the tomato in a salad. For added flavors I spend my day off traveling to Manhattan to bring back imported ingredients from the Mediterranean that I cannot find here; I also make them available for my customers to buy so they may have as much fun as I have cooking.

When good ingredients are used the flavor is built in so your job is easy—now all you need is some good olive oil, a baguette from Tivoli Bread and Baking, a bottle of vino and you have created another great meal. The most important thing is to realize that food is pleasure but also nourishment, so what you eat is a vital ingredient to a good life. Respect food and it will respect your body. Most of my choices are based on my experiences growing up and the flavor bank stored in my head from years of being in the food business as a chef and a consumer. As a provider of food people trust you to nourish them, and you have the duty to provide the best food for the experience they expect. Life is too short to eat bad food, especially if you don't have to.

So how did I wind up starting an authentic Italian specialty food store at the back of the Red Hook Inn? It all started while I was cooking for Tony May, an Italian restaurateur who has always been a passionate spokesman in this country for authentic Italian cooking and ingredients. His daughter Marisa and I are good friends and we always talk about food and the unsung virtues of people like her father, who genuinely try to promote authentic Italian cooking. I later took a job as a wine salesman: I had been taught that life's best teacher is experience. So what better way to learn about wine than drinking a lot of it? For me, food and wine are man's greatest creations, a marriage to last eternity. When I arrived to the Hudson Valley my first job was at Stoney Creek Restaurant and Bar in Tivoli. Peter Seidman, the owner, was as passionate about food as he was about wine. We spent many nights sharing wines from each other's cellars, to the point that in one year my cellar was gone . . .but it was a great time.

I loved going into Stoney Creek's garden and picking herbs and greens for the night's special. What a way to cook! And it reminded me so much of my Nonna. I felt at home in this area. What better place to settle and start a family? So after Stoney Creek closed I continued back and forth between the Hudson Valley and NYC. For a while I worked for Gigi Trattoria as a General Manager. Then it was back to New York City, where Mario Batali offered me a job as sommelier and manager at Otto Pizzeria and Enoteca. Mario is the consummate professional, and if he calls, you go to work for him! The year I spent there was a great experience, but I still had my heart set on the Hudson Valley. My friend Gennaro Picone, who owns an Upper West Side eatery called Gennaro's and has a home in Millbrook, was interested in opening a restaurant in the Hudson Valley. I mentioned to him that the Stoney Creek building was going on the market, and eventually he bought it, with the idea that he and I would create a great little Italian restaurant in Tivoli. Being two typical hard-headed Italians, however, we could not put our heads together, and, sadly, the project ended.

In the meantime I had met the love of my life, Michele Platt. She was living in the city working in film and television and also wanted a more peaceful environment. So when I stumbled upon a little space behind the Red Hook Inn we realized it would be the perfect solution. A plate of ravioli to the inn's owner, Beth Pagano, and the lease was ours. Now, in addition to family business Mercato Tivolio, we have since also given birth to a baby boy, Luca Matteo.

Spaghetti alle Vongole

This is my favorite dish of those my Nonno used to make.

1 lb. good quality spaghetti

4 dozen small littleneck clams (or 4 lbs of New Zealand cockles)

2 tbsp. chopped Italian leaf parsley

1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup white wine (or water)

Soak clams for 1-2 hours in salted water. Change water twice, or as needed, to remove sand. Put a large pot of water on to boil. Add a handful of salt and add pasta when water is boiling.

In a large skillet with lid, put one tbsp. olive oil, clams, 1/2 cup of white wine (or water), and heat over high heat. Cover and shake the pan for about five minutes, or until clams open. Remove clams still in shells and place the remaining in a bowl (covered with a moist towel to prevent drying out). Place the liquid in a separate bowl.

Rinse skillet and dry. Put it over medium heat. Add one cup of the extra virgin olive oil to skillet, heat for one minute and add minced garlic, 1 tbsp. parsley and the crushed red pepper flakes. Cook for one minute.

Add reserved clam juice (be sure to leave any settled sand in the bottom of the bowl). Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for five minutes. Remove most clams from shells (reserve three per person as garnish, or 12 for a platter). Remove skillet from heat, add clams, including those in shells, and gently warm, thoroughly coating each clam with sauce.

The pasta should be ready, always al dente. Drain and keep a little of the pasta water in case your sauce needs more liquid. Remove garnishing clams from sauce and add pasta, 1 tbsp. of fresh parsley to skillet and toss together. Add some pasta water if needed. Cover for 30 seconds.

Voilà. Bring it to the table with a good bottle of Vermentino or other dry white wine. And please, no parmigiano.

Serves four.