Life List: Cookbook Author

Domenica Marchetti
Alexandria, Virginia
Age 46
Married, 2 kids, cookbook author

My Goals
Write a cookbook
Serve like Serena Williams
Buy an Italian villa

The Essentials
Le Creuset Dutch oven
Trip to Italy
Really good olive oil

All of my earliest memories are of my mom in the kitchen. She's Italian and food was at the center of our life. She made homemade pasta on Sundays, and I spent a lot of time watching her cook.

To her cooking was a joy, and she passed that on to me. When I was older I would read cookbooks and think, "Oh, what a wonderful thing it must be to write one of these!" But I decided that people like Julia Child write cookbooks, not folks like me.

When I started working I got a job at a newspaper, but I was always impatient to get home and cook. After my kids were born I decided to try freelance writing. I'm not a networker by nature, but in 2004 I went to a food writers' symposium and made myself sit next to the cookbook editor at Chronicle Books. I struck up a conversation and, incredibly, he told me to send him a proposal. I had no clue how to write one, so I asked an author I met there to teach me. I focused on Italian soups and stews because those are the comfort foods that are a part of my family's heritage. The editor loved the proposal and I got a contract.

The Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy was published in the fall of 2006. My favorite recipe is my mom's pot roast.