: About Me

A performer since childhood, Ron James has spent more than thirty years as an actor, singer, broadcaster and popular master of ceremonies. He added "writer" to his list of credits about twenty years ago when he began regularly penning articles for a Nashville-based music industry newspaper. His writings on various aspects of the entertainment business have since been featured in numerous local and national publications.

Of course, life on the road has provided an education about travel and eating out, both topics providing subject material for his talents as a writer.

And somewhere along the way, his lifelong passion for Italian cuisine developed into a substantial ability as a gourmet Italian cook. Although encouraged by many to enter the kitchen professionally, James remembers a high school stint as a busboy and dishwasher and prefers to limit his culinary excursions to preparing occasional elaborate meals for family and friends. He does have an extensive "collezione di ricetta" which he threatens to publish as a cookbook someday.

He and his graphic artist wife spend much of their time and money renovating their historic home - sounds classier than "fixing up an old house" - where they live in peace, harmony and thermal incompatibility. She has dubbed him "penguin," hence the illustration elsewhere on this page.

Food & Drink > Cooking (Other) Book reviews: How Italian Food Conquered the World, by John F. Mariani

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I have long believed that Italian cuisine is the most popular on the planet, supplanting even its stuffy French cousin. Now comes noted author and food and wine correspondent John F. Mariani with the facts to back up my belief. “How Italian Food Conquered the World” is a fact-filled romp through Italian culinary history from Apicus to Mario Batali. Among its 270 pages you will find fascinating and informative anecdotes detailing Italian food's rise from the relative obscurity of the Italian peninsula to its current position of global dominance. If this sounds like hype, conside...

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