When Dr. Michele Carbone was eighteen years old and moved to Rome to start Medical School, his mother showed him how to make an espresso in advance of the move. That was the extent of his cooking expertise.

She also gave Dr. Carbone a book, Il Cuoco Gentiluomo (the Gentleman cook).  Michele never thought he would read it, but he soon realized he was always hungry because nobody cooked for him.  So Dr. Carbone started reading it and cooking some simple things on his studio’s two-burner cooktop.

At Christmas time, Dr. Carbone went home in Calabria, and his father gave him a huge box with 100 cans of tuna that a client had given him as a present.  He started making pasta with tuna. Well, after eating it many times, Dr. Carbone and his friends (by then he was inviting people over for dinner) were sick and tired of it, so he started experimenting in the kitchen.  No more following recipes—instead, Dr. Carbone started mixing things up to see what came out of it.  He thinks that was the beginning of his passion for cooking: no more book reading without knowing or understanding why he was mixing this and that together, but rather, trying to create something delicious.

Over the years, Dr. Michele Carbone became friends with many Chefs, invited them over, cooked together with them, went around the world and learned many new things. When he is at a restaurant and eats something particularly good, he walks into the kitchen and asks the Chef to show him how to make it.  Dr. Carbone learned many things that way.  For example, ten years or so ago he had the best French fries he had ever eaten in the Restaurant of the W Hotel, which is near the White House.  Henry Kissinger and James Baker were eating the fries together at the table next to: Dr. Carbone asked them “Have you ever eaten such good French fries“?  They agreed they were the best.  He walked to the kitchen and asked the Chef how he made them.  Dr. Carbone will post this and many other recipes that he likes here.  For all of the recipes, the same basic rule applies: use only first-rate ingredients.   If, for example, your olive oil is so-so, your food will be so-so. If you cook with bad wine, the food will taste bad, etc.  

Dr. Michele Carbone cooks almost every day.

When he was the Director of the Cancer Center in Hawaii, he turned his cooking skills into fundraising and raised about $25M in his kitchen. Yet, since his food is healthy, Dr. Carbone still weighs the same as he did 25 years ago.  He  once read “Do not trust a thin Chef”—that’s B.S.

There are three main problems with many cookbooks and cooking shows. The first problem is that if you know how to cook, you soon realize that those who speak in these shows often do not actually know how to cook—just look how clumsily they move around the food they are preparing! Or, you can see that they must never have tried the recipes written in their books, because if they had, they would figure out their recipes are wrong (times, amount, etc.).  The second problem is that they put so much fat into their food that if you were to follow those recipes you would gain a pound or two per day.  The third problem is that they make things look so complicated that I think most people give up and never even try.

So, with this in mind, Dr. Michele Carbone established this website: to share some simple and healthy recipes that anybody can make, so that you can enjoy good food and never be afraid to invite friends over for dinner.  Whether you invite two or twenty people, it doesn’t matter: they will leave thinking you are a Chef!