197. Buon Appetito, Betch!

It practically jumped off the shelf.

I was browsing around my public library, and there it was on the “new arrivals” shelf. An Italian cookbook featuring a shirtless young man and the word “betch.” How could I not take it home?

It turns out the young man, Gianluca Conte, is an “influencer” and an Internet sensation. While neither I nor my 30-something daughter, who is a food writer and editor, had never heard of him, he has 12.9 million followers of his TikTok cooking videos. His father, who has a restaurant in North Carolina (where Gianluca grew up), is a chef originally from Ischia, an island near Naples.

I enjoy watching cooking shows — whether it’s Giada or Lidia or Rachael or Jamie — that demonstrate step by careful step exactly what you should do. Gianluca’s videos are nothing at all like that. They move fast with lots of disjointed, quick cuts, and feature Gianluca goofing around, “falling” into his swimming pool, and guzzling olive oil. There is no way one would actually know how to cook anything after watching his videos. He speaks with a “goombah” Italian-American accent straight out of The Sopranos and Jersey Shore, which is like fingernails on a blackboard to me, except when he forgets himself and speaks normally. And of course, he’s always shirtless and always ends by saying “Buon appetito, betch!”

BTW — “Betch” is a milder derivation of “bitch,” “used to mock or as a term of endearment among young, usually white women,” according to Dictionary.com. Gianluca uses it to refer to everybody and nobody, peppering everything with a generous helping of “betches,” and sometimes just saying it for the heck of it.

I enjoy cooking, but I’m pretty terrible at it. I have a stack of Italian cookbooks — including the ultimate maestra Marcella Hazan and The Silver Spoon — but nearly everything I make turns out to be a disappointment. With that in mind, I devoted this week to making something from Gianluca’s cookbook every day: Pasta e Fagioli, Shrimp Fra Diavolo, Roasted Branzino, Baccalà alla Livornese, Pesce all’Acqua Pazza, Chicken Piccata, Beef Braciole, Spinaci Ripassati in Padella. And every single thing was fantastic, even the baccalà, made from dried salt cod, which is a little hard to pull off.

The recipes were simple and clear and featured easy-to-find ingredients. He designates some, like spaghetti and meatballs, as Italian-American; most are authentic Italian cuisine. I’ve just ordered the cookbook, and will probably reach for it every time I’m trying to make a special meal for company or the holidays.

Buon appetito, betch!