Ingredients

Appears in

Published 1996

Olive oil. It’s what greases good cooking. You can take a can of mediocre soup, drizzle it with olive oil, and it becomes a wonderful thing.
Bread. I have a hard time eating without bread near me—it’s so basic.
Tomatoes. Only in the summer months.
Eggplant. It’s close to home for me, and it’s like meat in terms of what you can do with it.
Bitter greens—chard, dandelion, kale, mustard. I eat them daily. They’re like a tonic—they make me feel so good.
Wine. Both my grandfathers made their own wine, so we grew up with it as a part of our life. It’s a miraculous thing—it’s incredible what can be made from grapes!
Lentils. There are so many different ones.
Salt—kosher or sea salt. Table salt has a sharp, stinging, acrid taste.
Pepper. I love what it does for food, the warmth it brings.
Arborio rice. (Romano first chose basmati rice, then switched when he realized he couldn’t make a menu with the other ingredients.) Basic to any cuisine is some sort of starch and protein. And I’d choose rice over potatoes. (See Michael Romano’s recipe for Risotto d’Oro.)

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