Why I Love To Hate Olive Garden

It's Good But It Could Be So Much Better

If you're a regular reader of the scribbles that occupy this space you're already aware of my opinion of the ubiquitous “Italian” eatery that is Olive Garden. For lack of a better term, let's call it a “love-hate relationship.”

My advice to anybody seeking an Italian dining experience has always been, “Well, if there isn't an Italian restaurant around, there's always Olive Garden.” Truth be told, the fast-casual subsidiary of Florida-based Darden Restaurants, Inc. knows they're not anywhere near authentically Italian. They actually style themselves as an “American Italian restaurant” or an “Italian-themed” restaurant. And if all the charming European architecture and the rich Tuscan colors and the wine and the dishes with Italian sounding names tend to make people think it's an Italian restaurant, well......the corporate parent is not going to work too hard to correct the misconception.

In fact, they used to rather encourage it by touting the training their staff received at the so-called “Culinary Institute of Tuscany,” which is actually a small Tuscan resort hotel and restaurant in Riserva di Fizzano that rents itself out to OG in the off-season to make a few euros and to provide a nice vacation for the company's managers, many of whom report that their “training” consists of sitting around for a couple of hours discussing spices or fresh produce. Then they pose for pictures with an Italian chef. The pics go to the hometown newspapers and the employees go sightseeing on the corporate dime. Ah, but they do tour a winery, visit a fresh food market, and eat in some local restaurants. By those standards, I should qualify as an Olive Garden master chef. Once word about the “Institute” started getting around, however, Darden kind of backed off advertising it.

Unsurprisingly, a poll conducted a couple of years ago found that thirty-nine percent of Americans thought that Olive Garden was as Italian as Italian gets. Uffa! I weep for those thirty-nine percent. And therein lies the real problem; the American perception of Italian cuisine. Let’s face it, most people think of Italian food in terms of pizza and spaghetti. Therefore, anyplace that serves either pizza or spaghetti is an “Italian restaurant.” More so if they serve both! And the greatest Italian chef to come to the average American mind is Chef Boyardee. Olive Garden is kind of an example of “cogito ergo sum;” Americans think it's Italian, therefore it is.

Did I tell you about the time I ate in an Olive Garden in Alabama and commented to the waiter about the spaghetti? It was overcooked and bland. The sauce was okay for something that came out of a bag. The waiter came by and asked, “How is everything?” So I told him. I asked him point-blank if the pasta came pre-packaged, refrigerated, and was just thrown into hot water and he said, “Yes, I think so.” Then he asked why I asked. I explained that the pasta was a little past al dente and that it had no flavor, as if there had been absolutely no salt added to the water. He commented, “People like you can always tell.” People like me. In other words, people who don't consider the aforementioned Chef Boyardee to be the ultimate in Italian cuisine.

And the reason the pasta lacked salt came to light a couple of years ago when an activist investor revealed that Darden/Olive Garden had stopped adding salt to its pasta cooking water in order to make the pots last longer! Dio mio in cielo! Cooking pasta with NO SALT? No frickin' wonder it's so utterly flavorless. Hey, you know tomatoes are awfully acidic. Maybe they should consider leaving them out of the tomato sauce to extend the life of those pots, too. What an utterly moronic affront to Italian cooking.

The investor published a 294 page report outlining everything he thought was wrong with Olive Garden. He mentioned the salt issue, for sure, but one of his other complaints was that, for an “Italian” restaurant, Olive Garden didn't serve enough Italian food. Fried lasagna? Really? Betcha they didn't learn that one at the “Culinary Institute.” How about the “loaded nacho chips” they tried to unload on us? Or the “Italiano Burger” with fries, created by a corporate chef concerned that Olive Garden was losing “burger craving” customers to places like Applebee's and Chili's. Of course, that particular chef got his start slinging pizza in Atlanta, so there you are.

Remember “pastachetti” and “soffatelli?” If you don't, that's okay; they're better forgotten. They were a couple of great examples of “if you can't make it, fake it.” There was nothing remotely Italian about these dishes. Somebody at corporate HQ in Florida just created some words that ended in vowels and added them to the menu for gullible American rubes to scarf down. They were, as Mashed writer Chris Heasman described them, “about as Italian as a man in lederhosen eating haggis on the banks of the Seine.” Gee, I wish I'd written that. The best I've come up with is that the food at Olive Garden is redolent of Rome and Florence. Rome, Georgia and Florence, Alabama, that is.

And the totally wacky thing is that after making up Italian names, when they come up with something that really is authentically Italian, they disguise it with an American name so Americans will know what it is! Case in point: arancini. Olive Garden calls them “risotto bites.” Oh well, at least give them credit for not calling them fried rice balls.

And does Olive Garden have something going on with Tyson or Perdue? They must because they seem to want to add chicken to everything. Chicken Parmigiana, Chicken Carbonara, Chicken Scampi, Stuffed Chicken Marsala, Zoodles Primavera with Grilled Chicken. (I can't believe I just typed the word “zoodles.”) You have no idea how annoyed I get when I order Fettuccine Alfredo and the server asks, “Do you want chicken with that?” (Sigh) There's nothing remotely Italian about Fettuccine Alfredo to begin with. But the American penchant for adding chicken – or any meat, for that matter – to pasta dishes completely defies Italian culinary principles. When you order a pasta dish, you do so because you want to taste the pasta. You don't want it smothered in cream sauce, you don't want it drowned in a quart of red sauce to which two cups of sugar have been added – although considering the dire lack of salt in Olive Garden's pasta, maybe those options aren't so bad – and you don't want it piled high with chunks of chicken. With apologies to carnivorous American palates, in Italy a plate of lightly dressed pasta is considered a meal. It doesn't “need” meat, as I've so often been told it does.

Oh, and by the way Olive Garden, all that up front soup and salad and breadstick stuff? You're doing it all wrong. It might be customarily American to serve soup or salad before a meal and to have loads of bread on the table as an “appetizer,” but that's not the Italian way of doing things. In an authentic Italian meal, the pasta comes out first. That's why they called it a “primo.” Soups and salads are served later in the meal progression and bread is an accompaniment not a course of its own.

But then that's not what Americans expect and you've got to give people what they expect if you want to stay in business. I've had many Italian friends who operate restaurants tell me that they have to serve stuff they'd never eat at home because customers expect it. Spaghetti and meatballs, for example. And quantities? Dai! Abbondanza be damned, no self-respecting Italian would ever eat as much food as gets piled on plates in American restaurants. The average serving portioned out to a single American diner would feed a family of four in an Italian household. My Italian friends know this, of course, but they say, “If I don't serve it like this, people will just go to Olive Garden.”

Believe me, I'm not alone in my low opinion of Olive Garden. There's even a Twitter feed for Olive Garden haters. One of the tweets says, “Cooking noodles doesn't make you Italian. On behalf of America, I'd like to apologize to Italy for @olivegarden.”

Don't get me wrong; I do eat at Olive Garden from time to time. Usually when I have gift cards someone has given me or when there's one located right next to my hotel or something. The “love” part of my relationship comes in that there are actually some very good things to be found at Olive Garden. The chicken gnocchi soup, for example, while not particularly “Italian,” isn't bad at all. I've duplicated the recipe and my wife likes mine better, but the original is still pretty good. Especially when they manage to get more than one or two gnocchi in the bowl. The “hate” part, however, is that there are also so many things that could be SO much better.

I could probably find 294 pages worth of my own Olive Garden criticisms but I'll spare you. Bottom line, if you're looking for Italian food, find one of the thousands of little Mom and Pop Italian places dotting the culinary landscape across the length and breadth of America. Ninety-nine-point-nine- percent of them will be Italian-American places but even the worst of them will be a better example of the cuisine than Olive Garden.

Or you might get lucky and stumble upon a place like Violino Ristorante Italiano in Winchester, Virginia. Now that's Italian! Or Galleria Umberto in Boston's North End. Best Sicilian pizza this side of Palermo. There used to be great places in Charlotte, North Carolina (Zarelli's) and in Orange Park, Florida (Ristorante Sarnelli), both sadly gone but fondly remembered just because they were so memorable. Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper. I found some decent Italian food at an Italian family-run place in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It's called – are you ready for this? – BLL Rotisserie Factory. Seriously. They're definitely not trading on some faux-Italian name, are they? But they serve some good Italian food, despite the funky name. (The specialty of the house, as you might guess, is rotisserie chicken.) Good Italian food is out there. You just have to look for it.

If, on the other hand, you're willing to settle for mediocre fast-casual fare, stuff that goes from truck to freezer to pot to plate like the stuff served at Applebee's, Chili's, Ruby Tuesday, and a dozen other chain places – except with vaguely Italian-sounding names – there's always Olive Garden.

The Apocalypse Edges Nearer as Olive Garden Introduces A Nacho Knockoff

I Would Say, “Say It Isn't SO!”......But It Is

What hath Darden wrought!? Olive Garden, the “Italian” restaurant chain that is far more representative of the tastes of Rome, Georgia, Florence, South Carolina, or Naples, Florida than of Rome, Florence, or Naples, Italy, has unleashed a new culinary abomination in the form of a nacho knockoff called “loaded pasta chips.” Yeah, you read that correctly; an “Italian” restaurant is now serving nachos. And not even real nachos, at that, but a bastardized “Italian” version of a Tex-Mex conglomeration thrown together by a guy named Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya at a Mexican border town restaurant in 1943. Does OG ever do anything that isn't derivative? As my Italian ancestors spin their way out of their graves in Emilia-Romagna, let me describe the dish.

Take fried lasagne strips to represent tortilla chips. Top them with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses and a three-meat tomato sauce loaded with chicken, meatballs, and sausage. Throw on some cherry peppers to double as jalapeños and drizzle it all with cloyingly creamy Alfredo sauce. Add a garnish of Pecorino Romano, Parmesan, and fresh parsley, and, tah-dah! – you have an instant Italian classic. And every Italian on the planet says, “che cazzo!?” Or at least, “uffa!”

Ostensibly, the......the.....creation is intended as a Super Bowl nosh, but it's going to be available until April 1. Perhaps we're all just victims of an extended pre-April Fool's joke.

Since I generally only go to Olive Garden when there are no Italian restaurants within a fifty mile radius (or when I get a gift card), I have not yet sampled this....this.....whatever this is, but surprisingly, I'm told it's not too bad. Or maybe not surprising since the ingredients are all Italian or Italian-ish. I mean, at least these.....these.....these Franken-nachos have decent DNA. I've even heard them described as “wickedly good.” Of course, a lot of people think lutefisk is wickedly good, but I wouldn't exactly expect to see it on an Italian menu.

But then again maybe I should expect to see it on an Olive Garden menu. After all, we're talking about a place that uses “evolving the brand,” “reinvigorated dishes,” and “we're bringing new things to the table” as part of its marketing strategy. The sign on the building still says “Italian Kitchen,” but what the hell; I have an “Italian kitchen” too, and I recently catered a wedding reception where the customer wanted a taco bar. I guess that means I'm “evolving the brand,” huh? Sometimes you just have to do what the customer wants even if you have to do it with clenched teeth. And apparently Olive Garden's culinarily challenged customers want Italian nachos. Boh!

Darden needs to either remove the word “Italian” from their logo or add the word “American,” because while there's a huge Italian-American influence in the kitchen, there's not much that's veramente Italiano. And the problem as I see it is that far too many Americans, especially those in the hinterlands (remember Marilyn Hagerty, the sweet if somewhat palate-numbed restaurant “critic” in Grand Forks, North Dakota?), are being led to believe the stuff they are being served at Olive Garden is the epitome of real Italian cuisine. It's bad enough they are being deluded into thinking that overcooked, under-seasoned pasta and unlimited breadsticks are Italian hallmarks straight out of a mythical “Culinary Institute” in Tuscany, but now they're throwing in freakin' nachos? Porca miseria, gli italiani sono fregati!

I'm thinking of organizing a nationwide protest. Maybe recruiting Italian nonne to march around with signs saying, “quello è NON italiano,” or “basta dire di no a nachos,” or just simply “sono incazzato.” Yeah. That ought to do it.

Olive Garden's New Menu Additions: Please Make Them STOP!

Don't Call The Place “Italian”

Here we go again. Another round of cringe-worthy culinary concoctions from the kitchens of Olive Garden, this time in the forms of “deep dish spaghetti pie” and “breadstick sandwiches.”

The first abomination is what OG's pazzo executive chef, Jim Nuetzi, calls “a traditional Italian dish.” Jeez, it's hard to type with your fingers clenched and your hands gripping the edges of your desk. Basically, you take enough spaghetti to feed a large Italian family and stuff it in a pie crust. Then you bake it, cover it with cheese, and slather it with sauce. You can have either the “meatball deep dish” or the “chicken Alfredo” options. OG descibes the latter as “Spaghetti, seven cheeses and Italian bacon baked to perfection in a flaky crust and topped with grilled chicken and our homemade alfredo,”

I am drooling and foaming at the mouth here. Not with anticipation of either of these dishes, but with outrage that any idiota could possibly call them “traditional Italian.” In the first place, the only spot you'll find anything “Alfredo” in all of Italy is at Alfredo's in Rome. The dish does not exist otherwise and it only exists at Alfredo's because the turisti expect it. In the second place, mixing chicken with pasta is not something any Italian cook would ever do. So for this “traditional Italian” monstrosity you get to break two rules for the price of one. And the meatball option isn't any better. In Italy, you can have spaghetti and you can have meatballs, but you can't have spaghetti AND meatballs. Plopping a fist-sized meatball in a pile of pasta and a pool of red sauce and baking it in a pie crust does not make it resemble anything authentically Italian.

Now, to offer the benefit of the doubt – and maybe this is where the chef gets his “inspiration” – there are baked pasta dishes in Italian culinary tradition that often employ leftovers. You take a little of this and a little of that left over from last night's supper and bake it all in a baking dish for today's lunch. I've never heard of the pie crust twist. But does this qualify the concoction as a “traditional Italian” dish? Leftovers? Really? Meh.

And what can you say about a “sandwich” made of Italian-ish ingredients wedged between sliced breadstick halves? Again, Italians have “breadsticks” (grissini) and they have “sandwiches” (panini), but they most emphatically do not have “breadstick sandwiches.” Here your choices are among the ubiquitous meatballs, chicken parmigiana (another thoroughly non-Italian dish), “spicy Calabrian chicken” (whatever the hell that is), and “eggplant parmigiana,” something, at last, that really is Italian, although I would challenge you to find an Italian who would add it to a sliced up soft breadstick and call it a sandwich. And,of course, you can have any of these offerings with a side of French fries. Now that's “traditional Italian!” Uffa!

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure these things are all good. When my choices have been extremely limited, I have eaten at Olive Garden and the stuff they pile on the plates is generally unobjectionable in terms of taste and quality. It's middle-of-the-road, at best: not really bad but not all that good. What is objectionable is the fact that they call any of it “Italian.”

When they first opened in Orlando back in 1982, Olive Garden was a typical example of a “red sauce joint.” With a menu based on the Italian-America food that average Americans had come to consider “Italian” rather than on any form of actual, authentic Italian food, coupled with a faux-Italian décor, the place was a typical “Italian restaurant.” Through various ownership and management changes, it has evolved (?) into what it is today: yet another example of the kind of ho-hum, uninspired, cookie-cutter fast casual eatery that dominates the culinary landscape in the early 21^st century. It has reached the current pinnacle/nadir of its existence by attempting to innovate through a strategy of blending American ideas with Italian (ish) ingredients. As a result, it has succeeded in being neither American or Italian. Heck, it's not even decent Italian-American. French fries? Breadstick sandwiches? What's next, hamburgers? Oh yeah....they tried that. Remember the forgettable “Italiano burger?”

Okay, so they have some Italian-looking and Italian-sounding stuff on the menu. It's easy to make something sound Italian. I remember a dish at a competing eatery called the “Piatto di Pollo.” “Piatto di Pollo!” It just sings Italian, doesn't it? It means “chicken plate.” And remember the scam a few years ago wherein OG advertised its “Tuscan Culinary Institute” and gave you the impression that all its cooks were being trained in Italian cooking at some sort of high end academy in Tuscany? The place turned out to be an Italian resort that the company rented in the off-season to which they sent a few employees for a vacation that included the opportunity to watch Italian cooks cook. And it's sad because there have been some real attempts at authenticity at Olive Garden now and then. But every time you think the place has turned a corner, it winds up leading to a dead end – like breadstick sandwiches with French fries. Why doesn't Darden just cut to the chase and stop calling the place “Italian?” Then they'd be free to openly make it into another Applebee's or Ruby Tuesday or Chili's. It's halfway there already. I mean, when your executive chef, the guy in charge of creating your menu, is a guy who used to make cheeseburgers at a steakhouse in Miami, where are you gonna go?

You know what I like at Olive Garden? The chicken and gnocchi soup. Here's what OG says about it: “This satisfying soup is made in our kitchens everyday with roasted chicken, traditional Italian potato dumplings, onion, celery, carrots and spinach. It isn't as rich as a chowder, but it's also not a true broth. Instead, our chefs mix both chicken broth and half and half for a light, yet creamy base. Add lots of vegetables, chicken and gnocchi, and the Olive Garden's Chicken and Gnocchi Soup is sure to become one of your favorites.” And you know what's Italian about it? Nothing. Oh wait, I take that back. It's got gnocchi in it and gnocchi is Italian. So.......instant classic!

I also like the tortellini al forno. This is a cheese and prosciutto-filled tortellini dish served in a Parmesan cream sauce and topped with crumbled bacon. Like the soup, it's about as Italian as sushi on a stick. Don't misunderstand me. It's delicious. I replicated the recipe and I make it at home all the time. Same with the soup. But both are examples of the way OG and similar places correctly assume that if they stick a recognizable Italian ingredient or two in a dish and give it a name with lots of appropriately placed vowels, undiscriminating diners will accept without question that they are eating “traditional” or “authentic” Italian dishes. “Piatto di Pollo,” indeed. That's how Olive Garden maintains its illusory spot as America's favorite “Italian” restaurant. And it's also why you see as many Italians eating there as you see Mexicans hanging out at Taco Bell.

Spaghetti pies and breadstick sandwiches are just two of the reasons I maintain, as I have for years, that if you can't find a good Italian restaurant, there's always Olive Garden.  

As The “No Carb” Fad Fades, Pasta Makes A Comeback

Pasta Can Be A Healthy Food

One of the major villains in the “all food will kill you” philosophy of the last couple of decades has been pasta. The carbohydrate-rich concoction of flour and eggs has been blamed for everything from obesity to ingrown toenails. Fad “low-carb” and “no-carb” diets have proliferated with concomitant celebrity endorsements, enriching scads of “doctors” of questionable degree and their greedy publishing houses. Ad agencies, always quick to pander to a trend, have slapped “low-carb” and “no-carb” labels on just about everything, right up there with the “gluten-free,” “antioxidant,” and “all natural” scams they've been running. And ill-informed sheeple have been eating it all up – or not, as the case may be. But recent surveys indicate the “carb-less” bandwagon may be slowing and pasta, that delicious staple of the Italian diet, may be making a comeback.

According to the Nielsen organization, dry pasta sales for the fifty-two week period ending April 2 were up almost three percent (2.9% to be exact) over the previous year. Nielsen also notes a 3.6% uptick in sales of “short” pastas like rigatoni and penne. Google chimes in in support of these figures with the release of their “2016 Food Trends” report. The report reveals that searches for pasta are up 26% from January 2015 to January 2016, with rigatoni, tortellini, penne, fusilli and linguine leading the charge up the comeback trail. Rigatoni in particular is seen to be “trending” across the U.S. in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and Miami. Those same Google trends suggest that Americans are finally getting over the “low-carb” craze, even though interest in the fad diet does spike a bit in January, the month in which everybody's New Year's resolution includes dieting.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that pasta is a “health food.” There are a lot of studies, many of them not conducted by quacks and charlatans, that extoll the virtues of restricting carbohydrates for both weight loss and heart health. If you have a legitimate medical need to limit your carbs, by all means, go for it. The whole spectrum of issues regarding “good” carbs and “bad” carbs and “net carbs” and glycemic indexes and whatnot is far too complex to toss off in a blog post, so I'm not even going to go there. What I am going to do is tell you that pasta can be a healthy food when consumed in moderation. Unfortunately, moderation remains conspicuously absent among most Americans.

I frequent several restaurants owned by Italians. Not Italian-Americans, mind you, but “fresh off the boat” Italians. When I eat in these places, I ask for my pasta to be served “like your mama would serve it.” In other words, don't put a feed trough in front of me and fill it with overcooked pasta piled with meatballs and drowning in cloyingly sweet red sauce. I don't want enough spaghetti to take home and eat for the next three days. Just do like Mama would do and give me a portion of pasta, lightly dressed in a simple, flavorful sauce, that's about the size of my closed fist. I always question my friends in the business; “You don't eat like that yourself. Why do you serve such huge portions in your restaurant?” The answer is always the same; “If we served like we actually ate at home, people would just go to Olive Garden or someplace. We've got to give them what they expect.” This expectation comes to us thanks to the advertising media-inspired caricaturization of round, fat Italians gorging themselves on heaping platters of pasta while shouting “abbondanza!” and “that's Italian!” No, it's not.

Dry pasta is a staple of the Italian diet and of the “Mediterranean diet” as a whole, a diet that has long been touted as being one of the world's healthiest. I know I said I wasn't going to do this, but I lied. Pasta is very low on the glycemic index. Depending on the pasta type and preparation, it registers between 25 and 45 on the 100 point GI. Compared to, say, potatoes, which weigh in at around 80 or white bread at 75. Dry pasta is a “good” carb, it's “goodness” enhanced by how it is made and what it is made of.

Dry pasta, or pasta secca, is made of hard durum wheat. In fact, “durum” is Latin for “hard.” Durum is a tetraploid wheat, as opposed to hexaploid wheats like the hard red winter wheat and hard red spring wheat used to produce flour for bread and other baked goods. Genetically, durum has 28 chromosomes, while hexaploids have 42. Durum is an older species, a hybrid of wild grasses that have been processed and consumed since Roman times. When ground, durum produces semolina, a coarse yellow flour whose large, crystal-like particles are much higher in gluten. This high gluten content helps bond the natural starches and keeps them from leaching out as quickly. Therefore, they digest more slowly which, in turn, results in a slower release of sugar into the blood. And because dry pastas are manufactured by extrusion, the process creates a very dense, compact carbohydrate structure that further retards absorption and allows for a slower energy release in the body. Put a piece of white sandwich bread in your mouth and it will be converted to sugar almost before you finish chewing it. This isn't so with pasta, which more closely mimics the carbohydrates found in fruits and vegetables. And that's it for the science.

Italians eat pasta every day. And yet, until the current generation, they have historically maintained obesity levels far lower than Americans and lower, even, than most other Europeans. Today's Italian kids, unfortunately, have strayed from the traditional diet and are more prone to obesity because of their exposure to American imports like McDonald's and Coca-Cola. Gotta love it. America's number one export: fat. Still, even as pasta consumption trends downward as non-traditional cuisines play a larger role in the Italian diet, over half of Italians interviewed in a recent survey continue to eat pasta every day. Americans tend to eat pasta only once or twice a week. But even though overall pasta consumption in Italy is four times what it is in the United States, because Italians actually eat less pasta at a single sitting than do Americans, obesity levels in Italy remain lower than in the U.S.

Another key health difference between Italian and American pasta consumption involves the preparation. Besides piling plates with portions unheard of in Italy, Americans tend to load their pasta down with gallons of rich sauces and other ingredients uncommon on the Italian table. Take, for instance, chicken Alfredo. It's a ubiquitous restaurant dish in the United States that is unknown in Italy. Adding chicken, or any meat, really, to pasta is not done in Italy. And so-called “Alfredo sauce,” loaded with cream and calories, is a mystery to Italian cooks. Chow down on a plate of that stuff at Olive Garden and you're looking at 1440 calories, more than half of them from fat. You know what one of my favorite pasta dishes is? One that's popular all over Italy? Spaghetti aglio e olio; spaghetti with garlic and oil. You infuse a little olive oil with some fresh garlic, add a little salt, and mix it with about a cup of spaghetti. It's satisfying and delicious and it comes in at a less than 350 calories. Splurge a little and make it spaghetti cacio e pepe (spaghetti with cheese and pepper) and you up the calorie count to a little over 500. Spaghetti al pomodoro (spaghetti in tomato sauce) checks in at less than 400 calories per serving. That's how Italians can eat pasta every day and not get fat: they don't serve it on platters and they don't pile it with everything but the kitchen sink.

Pasta is not and never has been a dietary bad guy. When properly prepared and portioned, it can be a healthy part of a balanced diet. Millions of trim, healthy Italians in lines stretching back two thousand years provide the proof. Avoid places where servers wearing back braces carry your food out on platters. Stay out of “all you can eat” establishments and run away from “bottomless bowls” and “endless” servings of anything. When you order or prepare pasta, the pasta itself should be the “star” of the dish, not puddles of sauce and piles of fat-packing extra ingredients. To eat healthy, eat smart and eat well. And always remember per mangiare bene, mangiare italiano! (To eat well, eat Italian!)

The Only Real, Authentic, Positively Perfect Way To Serve Your Spaghetti

“Finish Cooking Your Pasta IN THE G**D*** SAUCE”

Everybody knows that professional chefs and experienced cooks have a few tricks up their sleeves which enable them to elevate simple fare to a level unachievable by mere mortal cooks. Wanting to discover some of these tricks, a curious Reddit user recently posited the question: "Chefs of Reddit, what mistakes are we lay people all making in the kitchen?"

The answers were pretty straightforward – don't try to catch a falling knife, measure before you start cooking, don't try to put out a grease fire with water. Common sense stuff. But there was one answer I can really get behind and push into the collective consciousness of every home cook and faux-Italian restaurant cook in these here United States; “Add sauce to your pasta before finishing cooking.” Or as Reddit user Wahpaw more colorfully expressed it, “Finish cooking your pasta IN THE GOD DAMN SAUCE.”

I do not know nor will I ever understand from whence came the practice of cooking up a heaping pile of naked pasta, slapping it onto a cold dinner plate, then pouring about a quart of runny red sauce over the top of it. You see it everywhere and it's just got to STOP! Moms cooking spaghetti for your families, stop it! Volunteers cooking for church or civic functions, stop it! Restaurant cooks, especially you “Italian” cooks, basta! Do you not realize you are crushing the Italian soul? The only thing you could do that would be worse – and you're also doing it, believe me – would be to break up the pasta before you cook it and then to further desecrate it by piling it on a plate, drowning it in horrible sauce, and cutting it into tiny little bite-size pieces before stuffing it in your face. If a fairy drops dead every time someone says, “I don't believe in fairies,” I am warning you an Italian suffers the same fate every time you mistreat spaghetti.

From time to time we have the opportunity to teach relatively informal “hands-on” classes on various aspects of Italian cooking. We have a few studenti we are mentoring right now, in fact, and the very first lesson involved cooking and serving a proper spaghetti dinner. I started by busting every myth to which they had been exposed and by utterly eradicating everything their mothers had taught them or that they might have otherwise observed in local restaurants with names that end in vowels. A pinch of salt in a quart of water is not enough; don't ever put oil in the water or on the cooked pasta; don't rinse the pasta in cold water; don't break spaghetti in half before you cook it and don't cut it up after you plate it; and above all, don't throw naked hot spaghetti on a cold plate, dump a gallon of lukewarm sauce on top of it, and then cover it in salt, pepper, and grated “crap in a can” fake Parmesan. If this is the way you are accustomed to eating spaghetti, it is high time for you to start a new custom.

Before you tell me “well, that's the way the real authentic Italian restaurant down the street does it,” let me tell you something about most “real, authentic” Italian restaurants: they cater to their customer's tastes. That means they dumb down their menus for your benefit. I have several Italian friends in the restaurant business. I'm not talking about second or third or fourth-generation Italian-Americans. These are people born and raised in Italy. When I ask them why they serve exaggerated heaping portions of inauthentic gawdawful Italian-American dishes that would never, ever be found in their kitchens or on their tables at home, their answer is always the same; “If we cook in the restaurant like we do at home, the people would just go to Olive Garden.”

I'm not going to give you the whole “spaghetti dinner” master class here. What I am going to do, however, is reiterate the “Finish cooking your pasta in the sauce” rule.

Assuming you do everything else right – plenty of water, plenty of salt, no oil, no breaky the pasta – cook your pasta to just shy of al dente. I realize in addition to being a foreign phrase, that may be a foreign concept to many of you, so here's a simpler way to say it; cook your spaghetti about a minute or two less than what the package directions tell you. Reason? It'll finish cooking in the sauce.

Don't dump your cooked pasta into a colander and drain it desert dry. A little cooking water clinging to the noodles is a good thing. Reason? It helps evenly distribute the sauce. If I'm not cooking large quantities of pasta in big pots with special inserts, I just fish the pasta out with tongs or with one of those specially designed spaghetti server things. Either way, the noodles are a little wet when I drop them in the sauce. And I also reserve about cup of the cooking water on the side. Reason? It can be used later to help develop the flavor and texture of the sauce.

Now, there's a pot or pan of sauce already simmering on the stove. Meat sauce or plain tomato sauce; doesn't matter. Cream sauce or butter sauce; doesn't matter. Whatever sauce you're using, it should be hot and ready to receive the pasta. When you remove the pasta from the water by whatever means you choose, drop it directly into the waiting, simmering pot or pan of sauce. Add anywhere from a few tablespoons to a fraction of a cup of the reserved water and start stirring. Reason? You're sealing in the flavor.

A lot of nifty physical and chemical stuff happens when pasta cooks. Pasta is just flour, egg, and water. This means it's nothing more than a glutinous matrix of starches and proteins. Dried pasta, obviously, has had a lot of its moisture removed. When you drop it in hot water, several things happen. When the dehydrated starch molecules get warm, they start to absorb moisture. They rehydrate. Eventually, they kind of over-hydrate and burst open, releasing their starches. That's why pasta sticks like a mad thing if you don't have enough water. At the same time, however, the noodles are also absorbing flavor from the surrounding liquid. That's why you need salty water. If there isn't adequate salt in the cooking water, the finished product will be flat and bland. You can dump salt on cooked pasta until it gags you and all you'll get is overly salty pasta. It won't have a nice delicate flavor because the little flavor absorbing molecules are already done absorbing and have sealed up. That's also why you finish cooking pasta in the sauce – or the goddamn sauce, if you're Reddit user Wahpaw. Cooking it for that final minute or two in the warm sauce will enable the pasta – with it's little flavor absorbing molecules still operating – to better absorb the flavor of the sauce. That's something it can't do if it's been drained and dumped on a plate and had sauce poured over the top of it. Stir as you might, the sauce will never incorporate as completely. And you'll never get the same flavor and texture. It will never be a harmonious marriage of pasta and sauce. It will always be just a furtive affair of the two trying to come together. Sounds kind of sad and pathetic when you put it that way, doesn't it? That's because spaghetti cooked and served that way IS sad and pathetic! So stop it! Basta!

Seriously, finishing in sauce is the most authentically Italian way to cook pasta, it's the most authentically Italian way to serve pasta, and it is definitely the way to enjoy the most authentically Italian flavor in your pasta. Never mind the way your third-generation mother did it and forget about Frankie down at “Nunzio's.” Hell, even Chef Boy-Ar-Dee cooks the sauce and the pasta together. Do yourself a favor and a flavor; finish cooking your pasta in the sauce. You'll taste the difference.

Buon appetito!

An UPDATE: Fake Parmesan Cheese Is Real

I Told You So!

A while back I wrote what I called a“primer” for Parmesan cheese. In it, I extolled the virtues of Parmigiano- Reggiano – the real Parmesan cheese – and excoriated what I have long held to be “crap in a can”; the ubiquitous plastic or cardboard containers of “100% Grated Parmesan Cheese” that you find in every supermarket and in nearly every restaurant in America. I pointed out that because of the cellulose filler most of these sham cheese products contain, you might as well be eating sawdust. It's a quixotic crusade. Although educated and experienced cooks and chefs like Mario Batali will back me to the rind on the subject of Parmigiano-Reggiano, very few consumers pay any attention because they have been so deeply indoctrinated through the successful marketing strategies of the purveyors of fake cheese. To the vast majority of insufficiently informed minds, Parmesan = Crap In A Can.

So imagine my smug, self-satisfied, swellheaded, overweening delight this morning when this parade of news headlines scrolled across my screen: “Investigations rat out fake ingredient in cheese” – CBS News; “Parmesan cheese is not what it seems” – The Washington Post; “The Parmesan Cheese You Sprinkle on Your Penne Could Be Wood” – Bloomberg; “You May Be Sprinkling Wood Pulp on Your Pasta, Not Parmesan Cheese” – Time; “Parmesan cheese from many top brands may contain wood byproduct” – New York Daily News; “FDA: Parmesan suppliers doctored cheese with wood pulp” – The Detroit News; “FDA warning: More wood pulp than parmesan cheese in '100 percent parmesan'” – SILive.com; “Store-Bought Parmesan Cheese Contains Sketchy Ingredients Like Cellulose, Filler Made From Wood Pulp” – Medical Daily

See! I TOLD you so!

The accompanying stories were full of facts that hammered home the point I've been making for years:

The FDA has learned that Castle Cheese Inc. was doctoring its 100 percent real parmesan with such fillers as wood pulp. – The Detroit News

Acting on a tip, agents of the Food and Drug Administration paid a surprise visit to a cheese factory in rural Pennsylvania on a cold November day in 2012. They found what they were looking for: evidence that Castle Cheese Inc. was doctoring its 100 percent real parmesan with cut-rate substitutes and such fillers as wood pulp and distributing it to some of the country's biggest grocery chains. – The San Luis Obispo Tribune

Take my word for it, even as I am happy-dancing my ass all over my kitchen right now, I get no pleasure from being so fully, completely, excruciatingly and unambiguously RIGHT. Well....maybe just a little. The point is that if even that obtuse, foot-dragging, monolithic glacier known as the FDA – an agency frequently accused of being blindly and firmly in the pocket of Big Food and its minions – can come to the conclusion that something is rotten in Pennsylvania, then there must truly be something to worry about. A real “Cheesegate”. Or perhaps that should be “Porta di Parmesan”.

A cheese industry insider recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that some Parmesan cheese being sold contains twenty percent or more cellulose. According to a Bloomberg expert, less than forty percent of grated cheese is actually a cheese product. He believes that a fifth of all hard Italian cheese produced in the United States is mislabeled.

Product testing for the Bloomberg report reveals that Essential Everyday 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, from Jewel-Osco, was 8.8 percent cellulose. Wal-Mart’s Great Value 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese registered 7.8 percent. Kraft – the grandaddy of them all – tested out at 3.8 percent. Even Whole Foods 365 brand – a brand that didn’t list cellulose as an ingredient on the label – still tested at 0.3 percent.

In case you didn't read my original piece and are unclear on the definition and purpose of “cellulose,” cellulose is an anti-caking agent made from plant fiber, the most common source of which is wood fiber from wood pulp. In other words, sawdust.

The FDA's own code defines “Parmesan” thus: “Sec. 133.165 Parmesan and reggiano cheese. (a) Parmesan cheese, reggiano cheese, is the food prepared from milk and other ingredients specified in this section, by the procedure set forth in paragraph (b) of this section, or by another procedure which produces a finished cheese having the same physical and chemical properties as the cheese produced when the procedure set forth in paragraph (b) of this section is used. It is characterized by a granular texture and a hard and brittle rind. It grates readily. It contains not more than 32 percent of moisture, and its solids contain not less than 32 percent of milkfat, as determined by the methods prescribed in 133.5 (a), (b), and (d). It is cured for not less than 10 months.”

Ain't nothin' in there about no damn sawdust, now is there?

Castle Cheese, Inc – with parentheses around the word “cheese” – has been peddling its Parmesan-less “Parmesan” for almost thirty years. Bloomberg says the president of the company is scheduled to plead guilty to charges that carry a sentence of up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Her spin doctor attorney tells the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that the case is just a matter of improper labeling, not actual food safety. "No consumer’s health or safety was ever jeopardized as a result of the labeling matters at issue." Whatever helps you sleep, man.

Okay, I've said it and now – words I never thought I'd type – the FDA is backing me up. 100% Grated Crap in a Can is not “real” Parmesan cheese. Is it dangerous? No, not that anybody can prove. The helping of termites you have to swallow to help you digest the stuff might not be so good, I don't know. Does it taste like Parmesan? Sure. If you have no idea what Parmesan is supposed to taste like. Is it a cheap, crummy, inferior, low-quality, substandard, odious, counterfeit substitute for the real thing designed to appeal to the wallet rather than to the palate? Indubitably!

I've got to give one prop to Olive Garden and a few other faux-Italian eateries; at least the stuff they grate over your plate is actual cheese. It's not usually expensive Parmesan. Generally it's a more “affordable” substitute like Romano, but that's okay. Points for it not coming out of a shaker. Do yourself the same favor at home. Buy a grater and a wedge of real cheese. And ditch the can.

All About Parmesan Cheese

A Parmesan Primer

One of the most familiar of Italian ingredients is Parmesan cheese. People add it to everything to achieve authentic Italian flavor. And in all too many cases, that means reaching for the green package deceptively labeled “100% Grated Parmesan Cheese.”

Give me just a minute here while I weep.

Okay, let me break this to you gently, friends: the dry, desiccated, flavorless, sawdust-like substance in those containers bears about as much resemblance to real Parmesan cheese as a hippopotamus does to a ballerina. And I use that analogy precisely because Walt Disney put hippos in tutus for “Fantasia” to exemplify the absurd. Authentic Parmesan cheese is a time-honored artisinal product. The mass-produced processed crap in a can is a hippo in a tutu. You can dress it up and make it dance, but it's still a clumsy imitation.

About eight hundred years ago, Benedictine and Cistercian monks living in the Enza Valley in north central Italy drained some swampland between the towns of Parma and Reggio. They set some cattle to grazing there and soon discovered that cheese made from the rich milk of those cows was absolutely delicious. So delicious, in fact, that the monks became quite prosperous selling it to wealthy customers all over northern Italy. By the early 14th century, Parmesan cheese had made it over the mountains to Tuscany, where ships departing from Pisa and Livorno carried it to other Mediterranean ports. Giovanni Boccaccio spoke of it in his most famous work, “The Decameron”: “In a town called Bengodi… there was a mountain made up completely of shaved Parmesan cheese.” In this imaginary place, cooks rolled macaroni down the mountain of cheese in order to cover it with the snowy goodness. The cheese became popular in the port city of Genoa, where its rich taste and high nutrient value made it a staple for sea voyages. In the first recorded reference to Parmesan, written in 1254, a noble woman from Genoa traded her house for the guarantee of an annual supply of fifty-three pounds of cheese produced in Parma.

The monks called the cheese by its Latin name, “caseus Parmensis”, which roughly translates to “cheese of Parma.” It was called “Pramsàn” in the local dialect,“Parmesano” in Italian, and the French dubbed it “Parmesan.” Today, it is known as Parmigiano-Reggiano, and it is often referred to as the “King of Cheeses.”

There are only three things that go into Parmigiano-Reggiano: unpasteurized milk, natural rennet, and salt. That's it. No additives, preservatives, or any other chemical or artificial substance.

The making of Parmigiano-Reggiano is a process which begins with the evening collection of milk from cows that are fed a diet of grasses and hay from the approved production area. (More on that in a minute.) The milk rests overnight in metal trays, allowing the cream to rise to the surface. In the morning, the cream is skimmed and whole milk from the morning milking is added to the skimmed. Then the milk is gently heated in large vats and some whey from the previous day's production is stirred in. This starts the acidification of the milk. Next, natural calf's rennet is added as a coagulant, and curds begin to form in about twenty minutes. Using a spino, a tool that resembles a large balloon whisk, the curds are broken into pieces the approximate size of a grain of rice. The heat gets turned up a little and the mixture is cooked until it reaches 131°F, after which the heat is turned on and off over about an hour's time. During this process, the curds sink to the bottom of the vat and form a spongy mass. The mass is lifted with a long wooden paddle and divided into two roughly equal parts. Each part is individually wrapped in muslin and hung from poles to allow drainage of excess liquid. The liquid, whey, is collected and either used in the next day's processing or is fed to the local pigs that become prosciutto di Parma. Once the cheeses have dried a bit, they are transferred to round, straight-sided wooden forms. Here a scannable – and completely edible – casein plaque is placed on the top of each cheese. This plaque is for traceability, containing all the pertinent information about the cheese. As liquid continues to drain, the cheese is frequently turned and lightly weighted, but never pressed. Now a plastic insert is placed between the mold and the still-malleable cheese. This insert is a series of pin dots that spell out the words “Parmigiano-Reggiano.” It also contains the producer's code and the date of production. This information is imprinted all around the outside of every wheel of authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano and serves as the consumer's guarantee of authenticity. If you don't see the dots, it's not the real thing. Next the cheeses are placed in a brining tank, where they remain soaking in a sea-salt solution for about twenty-four days. Then they go to curing rooms, where they remain for at least one year, during which time they are wiped, brushed, and turned every ten days.

By law, production is restricted to the Provinces of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Bologna (but only the area west of the river Reno), Modena, and in the Lombardian city of Mantova, but only in the area to the south of river Po. The cheese is afforded Protected Designation of Origin, or PDO, status. (This translates to DOP – Denominazione di Origine Protetta – in Italian.)

Here's where we get into a little trouble. Shakespeare asks, “What's in a name?” Well, in Europe and under European law, the word “Parmesan” can only be used in relation to Parmigiano-Reggiano. (Kraft has to call its crap in a can “Parmasello” in Europe.) In other places, most notably in America, these restrictions don't apply. Here in the land of cheap imitations, you could pass a piece of shoe leather over a wedge of cheese, grind it up, and call it “Parmesan” and nobody would be the wiser. For all I know, that may be precisely what they do.

In America, as long as your cheese A) is made of cow's milk, B) is cured for 10 months or more, C) contains no more than 32% water, and D) has no less than 32% milkfat in its solids, you can call it “Parmesan.” And if your pig has babies in a doghouse, you can call them puppies. You can add potassium sorbate – that's a preservative salt – and cellulose powder to your “cheese” and still call it “Parmesan.” Nobody cares. By the way, cellulose is an anti-caking agent made from plant fiber, the most common source of which is wood fiber. So, yes, you really are eating cheese-flavored sawdust.

I know, I know......there are shakers full of the stuff on the table of every Italian restaurant in America. But, hey, those places also sell spaghetti and meatballs – a decidedly non-Italian dish – to people who don't know any better, so why not? Why not pour fake Italian cheese over a fake Italian dish? It's the American way.

Okay, I'm being harsh. Truth be told, there are some pretty good domestic “Parmesan” cheeses being produced in America, especially in Wisconsin, a place that knows a thing or two about cheese. BelGioioso and Sargento both make a decent Parmesan – if you're not really picky. I hate to say it this way, but if I'm cooking for a large group of people who likely wouldn't know the difference anyway – the same people who order spaghetti and meatballs – I'll save a few ducats and use the cheap domestic stuff. My family, friends, and special clients, however, always get the real thing.

So how do you tell the difference? Simple. The real stuff sells for about twenty dollars a pound. The fake stuff goes for about twenty pounds to the dollar. Okay, it's not quite that extreme, but, really, folks, do you honestly expect that the stuff you buy in a plastic can for $3.98 is in any way an authentic Italian ingredient? Really?

Do yourself a flavor: find a cheesemonger somewhere – like at Whole Foods, maybe – who will let you sample and compare. Get some real Parmigiano, some domestic Parmesan, and some grated crap in a can. Taste all three and if you can't tell the difference, you need a tongue transplant.

I loved watching Giada de Laurentiis when she was filming in Italy. There in her kitchen was a whole frickin' wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano. That's about eighty pounds of cheese at roughly twenty dollars a pound. Do the math. And I love it when Mario Batali hollows out a wheel of Parmigiano and uses it as a bowl for some spectacular dish. C'mon! Get real! I buy Parmigiano-Reggiano in one-pound chunks and I try to find it on sale. I scored a deal the other day: ten dollars a pound. Woo-hoo! It's not a cheap ingredient. But it is the best one for real, authentic Italian flavor, so splurge a little.

I use a Microplane grater to create mountains of snowy white deliciousness for pasta dishes. (Kinda like the people in Bengodi.) I use a vegetable peeler to shave thin slices over salads and other dishes. And I stick the rinds in the freezer and pull 'em out when I'm making soup. Nothing matches the deep, rich, slightly salty flavor of real Parmigiano-Reggiano. Nothing.

And, by the way, the stuff they so generously grate over your plate at Olive Garden is not Parmigiano-Reggiano or even “Parmesan;” it's Romano.

So now you know. When it comes to real Italian flavor, you can spend a little more and use real Italian cheese, you can scrimp up a bit and use fake Italian cheese, or you can scrape the bottom of the barrel and eat cheese-flavored sawdust. The choice is yours.

FYI, you can buy the real thing at Whole Foods, The Fresh Market, Trader Joe's, Kroger, Publix, Harris-Teeter and other higher-end chain groceries with “specialty cheese” departments. You can even get it at Walmart, Sam's and Costco. It's not all that hard to find, so go find some today. Make your mouth happy.

Buon appetito!

Whaaaaaat? No Salt In Olive Garden's Pasta? That's Not Italian!

Restaurant Chain Sacrifices Flavor to Save Money on POTS!

I knew it, I knew it, I KNEW it! Time and again, when circumstances have led me to eat at Olive Garden, I have complained to the waitstaff about the unseasoned blandness of the pasta. I've said it again and again, “It's like they're not putting enough salt in the water. Turns out I was right!

In a report released by Starboard Value, an investor in Olive Garden's parent company, Darden, it is stated that in order to get an extended warranty on its pots, Olive Garden no longer salts the pasta cooking water! Did you get that? In order to get an extended warranty on POTS, the brilliant minds behind the “modern taste of Italy” have opted to ruin the quality of their food. The report opines, "This appalling decision shows just how little regard management has for delivering a quality experience to guests."

Every single Italian cook I know – as well as all the married ones – will emphatically tell you that the first step, the very first and most essential step in cooking pasta is salting the water in which the pasta cooks. You cannot – underline cannot – impart flavor to pasta any other way. Salting the water allows pasta to be seasoned internally as it swells, releases starch, and absorbs water. Once the pasta has cooked, no amount of salting at the table will give it flavor. It'll just taste salty.

Most Italian cookbooks use words like “generous” when it comes to salting the water. Mario Batali advocates “aggressive” salting. Many cooks say the cooking water should taste “like the sea.” The rule of thumb is about one tablespoon of salt per quart of water. That would be four tablespoons, or about a quarter cup, per gallon. Some cooks go with a tablespoon per two quarts, or about two tablespoons per gallon. Personally, I split the difference and use three tablespoons per gallon. People who use a teaspoon or a pinch or no salt at all because it's “healthier” are just deluding themselves.

There are 28,319 mg of sodium in a quarter-cup of salt. When you dump it into four quarts of water and add dried pasta, the pasta only absorbs about three percent of the sodium. The rest goes down the drain. Assuming you're eating pasta like a normal person, i.e. a two-ounce serving, that's a little less than 300 mg of sodium out of your recommended 2,300 mg daily limit. Even less if you only use three tablespoons of salt, like I do. Eliminate the salt and you eliminate the flavor. Like Olive Garden does.

The rationale here is that salting water can cause pitting in stainless steel surfaces. There's a mile-long scientific explanation, but it boils down to – pardon the pun – the interaction between the chloride in sodium chloride (salt), oxygen in water, and chromium in stainless steel. And once the pot is pitted, it's pitted. Of course, you can avoid the problem by letting the water come to a full, rolling boil before adding the salt. But that would make too much sense. Better to 86 the salt – and the flavor – and preserve the pot. The crowned heads at Darden long ago figured out that nobody who eats at Olive Garden would know good Italian food if it bit them in the ass anyway, so they figure they've got nothing to lose by further desecrating their flavors in order to save a few shekels on cookware.

Other chain Italian places, like Maggiano's and Carrabba's, must get better deals on their pots, because they aren't afraid to add salt to their pasta cooking water. Which probably accounts for why both of them were rated higher than Olive Garden in recent national surveys. Of all the ludicrous excuses I've heard for pinching a few pennies, fundamentally changing the nature and quality of your primary product in order to get a better deal on pots has got to be the stupidest and most shortsighted one out there. Okay, Italians, say it with me: Uffa! Che schifo!

Come on, Olive Garden. Tell me again how you “aim to make every guest experience feel more like modern Italy.” If bland, flavorless, badly cooked pasta is an example of “modern Italy,” I'll take old Italy any day.

You know what might be fun? And I'm just a big enough jerk to do it? Next time you go to Olive Garden, bring your own pot and say, “Here. I don't want to ruin your pots, so cook my pasta in this. And use plenty of salt.” Wonder what they'd do. They'd probably cite health code restrictions, but it would be fun to try. And it might deliver a message to management about their “focus on flavor that is uniquely Italian.” It may be unique, alright, but it's definitely not Italian.

Another Screw Up for Olive Garden

Leave the Logo, Change the Food

Anybody who reads my little screeds knows how I feel about Olive Garden. It's a place I love to hate primarily because it is such a miserable representation of Italian food and yet hordes of Americans go there thinking it is the Italian version of haute cuisine.

Well, apparently I can't say “hordes” anymore because every market study that's come down the pike lately shows Olive Garden, and its Darden-owned cousin Red Lobster, spiraling downward. I took my wife to Red Lobster the other day to stop her from drooling over the “LobsterFest” TV commercials. My god! The ridiculous prices dried up the drool in a big hurry. We could go down to our local market and buy enough seafood to make more than twice the food at less than half the price. It was positively obscene – especially since it wasn't nearly as much the last time we went LobsterFest-ing. What gives?

Anyway, back to Olive Garden. Their crack(ed) marketing team has taken another big swing at the home run ball and failed to even score a base hit. In fact, they grounded out. After abandoning their decades-old “When You're Here, You're Family” slogan in favor of the more insipid “Go Olive Garden,” they've now decided to ditch their familiar iconic logo. And I do not exaggerate when I say

everybody hates the new one. Oh, I'm sure the people who designed it are in love with it and the people who shelled out big bucks for it – bucks that the company could ill afford to spend foolishly – are at least pretending to love it in order to save face, but everybody else hates it. Let's see.......here are a few comments I gleaned from the Net: “It looks like a Design 1 student project;” “Looks like it was drawn with a breadstick;” “I hope that [the new logo] is a joke because it looks like garbage;” “Looks like something off a crock pot from the '70s;” “Looks like it was stolen from the header of a vegetarian's Wordpress blog;” “Looks like a second grader's cursive writing practice.” Can you feel the love?

Come to think of it, its been awhile since I saw the “Go, Olive Garden” nonsense on TV. Seems to me the spot I saw the other night used a variation on the “family” theme. Hmmmmm. Maybe they'll do the same thing with the logo; make it interchangeable with the old one depending on how the market is responding on any particular day. “Ooops! We're losing money today. Quick, bring out the old logo and say something about family.” Idiots.

When will Darden learn that it's not about slogans and logos? It's the food, stupid. First of all, the portions are monstrous by Italian standards. The stuff they slap on a platter to serve to one individual obese American would feed an Italian family of four for three days. I mean, they bring out a salad bowl that's the size of a punch bowl and serve it to one or two people. On the rare occasions when circumstances dictate that I go there, I ask for a child's portion of whatever I'm getting and I still can't finish it. And then there's the quality and authenticity. Please! Save the “fresh” and “made from scratch” crap for the ad campaigns. I know the difference and I also know people who have worked in the kitchen, okay? Olive Garden is to fresh, authentic Italian food what hip-hop is to ballet. Don't even go there with me.

And don't insult me with your “brand renaissance,” and don't invite me to “experience today's Italy.” You could put the execs at Darden in the middle of the cazzo Colosseum and they wouldn't recognize Italy. Their marketing drivel boasts to their clueless investors that they are the “#1 Italian Full-Service Concept in the U.S.” In the first place, they couldn't locate Italy on a map and in the second place, what the hell is an “Italian Full-Service Concept?” If they think they're #1, they're full of #2. They say they are making “important refinements” to their “strategic framework” through a “new approach to advertising and promotion.” How about a new approach to Italian food, morons? The rest of their investor presentation just made me gag. Here it is if you want to gag along. http://investor.darden.com/files/doc_presentations/2014/Strategic%20Action%20Plan%20to%20Enhance.pdf 

Now, I do have to give them props for a couple of recent innovations. They have added some small plates to the menu that are actually not too bad. They've introduced an arancini dish – although they insist on calling it “risotto bites” because it's easier than explaining what an arancino is. And they came up with a baked prosciutto-stuffed, bacon-topped tortellini that's pretty good. The arancini idea is actually authentic and the tortellini is at least Italian-ish. And they are both served in manageable portions at reasonable prices. Steps in the right direction? Maybe.

Another thing they're doing right is their “cafe” concept. Instead of taking the little buzzer thing and waiting for forty minutes, my wife and I went straight to the bar area and found a table there. Seating is on a first serve basis, but somebody was leaving just as we got there, so we were seated immediately. It was a little noisier and a little more crowded, but there were no screaming kiddies either, so that was a definite plus. We finished our meal and left while the people who came in after us were still standing in the lobby holding their little buzzers.

But for every step forward, Olive Garden seems to take three steps back. Besides the despised new logo and banal new slogan, they've hired a clueless new corporate chef. Executive Chef Jim Nuetzi started out slinging pizza in Atlanta and to prove that he has Italian cooking chops, his first move when he signed on at Darden was to create an “Italiano Burger.” With fries. He claims Olive Garden is losing customers who have a “burger craving” to places like Applebee's and Chili's. I don't even know how to wrap my head around that. What's next? “Italian” tacos for the Taco Bell crowd? Why can't they figure out that when you try to be everything to everybody, you wind up being nothing to anybody. At least the old chef, Paolo Lafata, knew pasta from peanut butter.

Darden has already announced that it's cutting its losses and “spinning off” Red Lobster. Wonder how that will fly with the side-by-side combo units they've been putting up lately? But they insist they are hanging on to Olive Garden. Only problem is, they're piling rocks and boulders into a sinking ship. “Brand renaissance” and new logos and “new approaches to marketing and advertising” are not the answers. An Italian restaurant that serves Italian food is.

Olive Garden Yanks Out a Few More of Its Italian Roots

You Want Fries With That?

Just when you thought Olive Garden couldn't possibly be less of an example of an authentic Italian restaurant, they come up with another brilliant idea to distance themselves from their identity. Now they wanna be a burger joint. Enter the “Italiano Burger.”

This latest dumbing down of the menu consists of a six-ounce burger topped with mozzarella, prosciutto, arugula, pesto, tomatoes, and aioli. And, yes, it comes with fries. Parmesan garlic fries, of course. Gotta stay Italian, right?

What's next? A clown mascot with an Italian accent?

I'm not saying the burger doesn't sound delicious, but it's about as authentically Italian as Chicken Alfredo, another of the chain's signature "Italian" dishes.

The move comes as a knee-jerk response to increased competition among so-called “casual dining” establishments. This competition has forced a lot of “refining” – to use their word – of the Olive Garden menu. First, they pared down their original menu. Of late, they've been trying to appeal to cost conscious diners with three-course meal options. And they've gone after the young trendy crowd with small plate offerings. They abandoned their long-standing “family” marketing strategy in favor of something allegedly more appealing to hip, edgy, consumers on the “go.” It worked for me. Every time I see an Olive Garden, I say, “Go. Anywhere else. Just go.”

Apparently Clarence Otis, the CEO at Darden Restaurants, thinks the best way for a pseudo-Italian eatery to compete with classic American places like Applebee's, Chili's, and Ruby Tuesday is to become more like them. I guess the idea of becoming a better Italian restaurant never crossed his mind. It's easier to lower the bar than it is to raise it. And when your financial backers are looking at falling numbers and pushing for changes, you take the cheap, easy way out and become a burger joint. An Italian burger joint. Hey, there's one on every corner in Rome, right? Not!

A Sicilian chef named Paolo Lafata used to be the executive chef at OG. I don't know if they showed him the door or what, but now Jim Nuetzi, a guy who started out slinging pizzas in Atlanta, is calling the shots and he's the one you can thank for this latest burger debacle. Seems even the head guys at Darden were reluctant to go the burger and fries route, but Nuetzi won them over with his concoction of an all-American staple made with Italian ingredients. And French fries. Uffa!

You know, there are cheap little Mom & Pop restaurants with Italian-sounding names all over the country that get by on serving spaghetti and burgers in an attempt to be everything to everybody. You probably have one or two in your town. If you also have an Olive Garden, you now have one more.

I want to like Olive Garden. I really do. But they keep making it harder and harder. I've read dozens of comments on various sites from people who say they really used to like Olive Garden. It used to be unique, it used to be a good place to take the family, you could get at least sort of Italian food there that you couldn't get anywhere else. But in recent years the chain has cut its menu, lowered the quality of its food, and raised its prices. Even their new “Italiano” burger is weighing in at a hefty ten bucks.

Maybe the time has come for a remake. Let Darden shutter all 800-plus restaurants and rebrand them as some sort of classic American place. Then they could be just like Applebee's and Chili's and all the rest. They could serve steak and seafood and burgers and wings and be just like dozens of other eateries. No need to keep up an Italian front that has been slipping away for years. Or they might do something really radical and try to become a real Italian restaurant. Do away with the faux-Tuscan trappings and the overpriced Americanized menu and serve authentic Italian food at affordable prices. And the dish could run away with the spoon while the cow is busy jumping over the moon. That's more likely to happen first.

Mexican food is a fast-growing element on the American dining scene. Look for Olive Garden to add tacos to their menu next. I actually visited an Olive Garden that was attached to a Red Lobster. Since Darden owns both properties, why not knock out the wall and make an Italian seafood place that also serves burgers and fries? Sooner or later you'll pander sufficiently to the lowest common denominator and you're bound to make a buck or two, right?

In the meantime, how does “McOlive Garden” sound to you?

"Go Olive Garden?" I Don't Think So

Olive Garden Takes Another Step Away From Being an Italian Restaurant

Anybody who reads my writing regularly – my, wasn't that alliterative? – knows how I feel about Italian restaurant chains, particularly Olive Garden. I eat there once in awhile – usually when I'm on the road and the choice is between there or Burger King. As I've frequently said, if you can't find a good Italian restaurant, there's always Olive Garden. But Darden Restaurant's latest marketing move might make me reassess that statement.

Before I go forward, let me back up. I ate at an Olive Garden recently; I had been given a gift card by well-meaning people who knew I “like Italian food.” <Sigh> So, I'm in town for a game and there's an Olive Garden and I've got this card........

Most dishes on Olive Garden's menu aren't too offensive; they aren't too Italian, but they aren't too offensive. It was late at night and I didn't want to go real heavy, so I ordered a simple spaghetti marinara. I specifically asked, as I always do in such places, for a real Italian portion. By that I mean something that's not served up in a feed trough carried to the table by two servers. Generally, a “child's” portion is what I wind up with. I can eat at least half of that.

As usual, the spaghetti was overcooked and bland. The sauce was okay for something that came out of a bag. The waiter came by and asked, “How is everything?” So, I told him. I asked him point-blank if the pasta came pre-packaged, refrigerated, and was just thrown into hot water and he said, “Yes, I think so.” Then he asked why I asked. I explained that the pasta was a little past al dente and that it had no flavor, as if there had been absolutely no salt added to the water. He commented, “People like you can always tell.” People like me. In other words, people who don't consider Chef Boyardee to be the ultimate in Italian cuisine. Then this Olive Garden waiter, standing in the middle of his own Olive Garden restaurant, asked me if I had ever been to a certain downtown Italian ristorante, the name of which I'm redacting to protect the guy's job. I was quite familiar with the place and I started explaining to him why the pasta there was so much better. I talked about artisanal suppliers and the superior texture of the pasta resulting from its being extruded through brass dies, and stuff like that. He thanked me for the information! All in all, other than encountering a refreshingly candid waiter, it was a typical Olive Garden experience. (I related this story to my son, a former waiter at another Italian chain place. “Geez, dad. At least we cooked our own pasta before we threw it in the refrigerator and reheated it.” See why I avoid chain places?)



(Image courtesy Business Insider)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: Darden's new bone-headed marketing ploy. According to an Associated Press story, “Olive Garden is tossing out its famous 'When You’re Here, You’re Family' slogan to cater to a more modern lifestyle.” Oh, joy. Now it's going to be “Go Olive Garden.” I can't say for sure, but this sounds like it was written by the same dreadful hack who convinced the pork people to ditch “The Other White Meat” in favor of “Be Inspired.” Or maybe the guy who sold McDonald's on “I'm Lovin' It,” my personal winner for Most Despised Slogan.

The AP story continues: “Instead of evoking Old World charm, the new ads will feature brightly lit snapshots of modern life — little girls at ice skating practice, a woman striking a yoga pose, a group of friends taking a picture of themselves with a smart phone.” Doesn't that just scream “Italian?” Doesn't that just make you want to chow down on a platter of pasta? Doesn't that just make you sick?

According to one Jay Spenchian, Darden's executive vice president of marketing, the image of the traditional long family meal no longer reflects today’s hectic lives. And Olive Garden no longer reflects an Italian restaurant. It's become Applebee's with pasta.

In fact, in a blatant rip-off of Applebee's “2 for $20” gimmick, Olive Garden plans to serve up a “Dinner Today, Dinner Tomorrow” offering whereby you can grab a meal for now and they'll pack one up for you to take home. Kind of like leftovers, only on a grander scale.

They're trying to steer gullible rubes......er......I mean, potential customers into seeing Olive Garden not as a place where you have to come in and sit down with the whole family for a big meal, but more as a place where you can just dash in and grab a quick something for yourself. Ugh!

Can you think of anything more antithetical to the traditional Italian way of life? Italian meals are supposed to be leisurely family affairs where everybody sits down at the table and enjoys good food, good wine, and good conversation. “When You're Here, You're Family” is what it's all about! Any greasy spoon diner, dive, or truck stop can shovel out plates full of food for the hurried traveler on the go. This is what Darden wants? To be a high-priced truck stop with an Italian-sounding name? Go for it, buddies.

On the bright side, Olive Garden plans to emphasize what it calls “Lighter Italian Fare;” dishes that have 575 calories or less. Oh, you mean something closer to real Italian food? Something that doesn't come heaped up on a platter with “endless” side items? That's a step in the right direction.

But the idea of abandoning all semblance of even faux-Italian culture in favor of the “modern” way of life is revolting. If I want Italian fast-food, I'll go to Fazoli's.

Come to think of it, Fazoli's recent “upgrade” includes an attempt to look more Italian. They've done away with the schlocky décor and covered their walls with pictures of families enjoying Italian food. They, too, have a line of “light” entrees – except theirs have 400 calories or less. The food quality is about the same as Olive Garden's and it's cheaper.

Va bene! The decision is made. If I'm no longer “Like Family” at Olive Garden, I simply won't “Go.” From now on, if you can't find a good Italian restaurant, there's always Fazoli's.

You, Too, Can Cook Like an Olive Garden Chef

Getting a “Culinary Institute of Tuscany” Education Without Leaving Your Home

Over the past few years, I've written more than a few commentaries about Olive Garden. While none of them have been out and out bashes of the place, none of them have been particularly complimentary either. 

Understand, I have no personal ax to grind with the chain. It's not like they dosed one of my toddlers with sangria or anything. No, my issue is broader: through a series of successful business and marketing maneuvers, Olive Garden has managed to position itself in the American consciousness as the “go to” place to go to when you're looking for Italian food. And that's just wrong. Olive Garden is about as authentically Italian as my Grandma Ida's haggis. And yet this scenario plays out hundreds of times each day: “Honey, I'm hungry for Italian tonight.” “Okay, dear. Let's go to Olive Garden.” And off they go, bypassing thousands of real, authentic Italian eateries that don't have huge corporate advertising budgets.

So it was with a rather mean-spirited sense of delight that I observed the recent media revelation that one of Olive Garden's key advertising gimmicks – the “Culinary Institute of Tuscany” – is a fraud. I've always known that, but I am only one little voice crying out in the culinary wilderness. However, when Time.com, prompted by the viral online revelations of a person claiming to be a former Olive Garden manager, set out to answer the question, “What Actually Goes On at Olive Garden's 'Culinary Institute' in Tuscany,” I felt totally vindicated by the answer.

There ain't no such place.

(See the article at http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/04/15/what-actually-goes-on-at-olive-gardens-culinary-institute-in-tuscany/)

Turns out that the folks at Darden Concepts, Inc., the parent group behind Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Longhorn Steakhouse, and others, simply rent rooms at a Tuscan resort hotel with an attached restaurant during the off season. Olive Garden owns nothing; the place belongs to a local winery. But the company sends select members of Olive Garden management off in shifts to enjoy week-long, all expenses paid visits to Italy. While there, said managers spend a little time in the restaurant and its kitchen where they talk with a chef about Italian food. They visit the winery and a fresh food market and they eat lots of Italian goodies.

I did the same thing on a recent visit to North Carolina. I ate at a couple of great Italian restaurants, talked to the chef at one and to the manager at the other, visited a couple of wineries, and went to a local market. I guess that makes me a graduate of the “Yadkin Valley Culinary Institute.” (Hey, if Darden can make 'em up, so can I.)

But if even attending the “Yadkin Valley Culinary Institute” is beyond your means, here's a cheap and easy way to get the same degree of culinary education that Olive Garden offers. Go to your local grocery store and get a nice bottle of wine. Bring it home, pour yourself a glass, sit down at your computer and log on to www.olivegarden.com. Go to the “recipes” tab, and there you can watch videos of Chef Paolo Lafata – the same “Culinary Institute of Tuscany” guy you see in the TV commercials – as he prepares “authentic Italian recipes.”

I'm serious! I've appropriated a number of Chef Paolo's recipes and they're pretty good, provided you get the right ingredients and know enough about cooking to keep from burning yourself or cutting your finger off. If you can find your way around in a kitchen, if you can assemble good, fresh ingredients, and if you can follow the recipes on the website, you, too, can cook like an Olive Garden “chef.” You can even claim to have attended the online version of the “Culinary Institute of Tuscany” and to have studied with Chef Paolo!

Make no mistake, Paolo Lafata is the real deal. Educated at the Istituto Vittorio Emanuale, he did a stint at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago and spent seven years in the kitchens at Walt Disney World. He's Darden's Senior Executive Chef and Chef Director and he even made five appearances on “The Tony Danza Show” back in 2004. Now that's Italian! His home kitchen is not exactly in Tuscany, but it's nearby – in Orlando, Florida.

And if for some reason you find that you just can't master the skills of a “Culinary Institute of Tuscany” graduate, there's always this option: “Honey, I'm hungry for Italian tonight.” “Okay, dear. I found a great little authentic Italian place. It's right down the street from Olive Garden.”