It wasn’t until I stumbled into a group of Italian students that my taste buds (and appetite) truly went into overdrive. I’d never met a group of people with more rigid rules about what to cook and how and when to cook it. Tomatoes were nearly always canned, because, as my friend from Turin whispered conspiratorially to me one night, “England never has good tomatoes.” He said it so dramatically, as if an entire country were afflicted with an incurable disease. In my wholesome American naivete, I once suggested slicing grilled chicken breast on top of pasta and was nearly beheaded by a flying wooden spoon from Francesca, my gal pal from Florence. My friend from Sicily didn’t speak to me for a week after I cut pasta with a knife and fork. To this day, I can still hear him yelling at me. “YOU NEVER CUT THE PASTA!”

Still, the Italians were always the hosts. I could come back soaking wet from running through the streets of London after class, without a single food item in my refrigerator, and the Italians would take me in. There was always vino, so much vino. My umbrella would sit by the radiator, drying to a crisp, as I listened to them tell raucous stories into the night. Time and again, they showed me that the best, most comforting meals could be had with just a few simple ingredients. From them, I learned that a really good pasta dish could start with just a can of plum tomatoes, a smashed clove of garlic, some olive oil and a pinch of salt.

I didn’t know it then, but my Italian friends were teaching me the basics of all good food, and I learned to make pasta al pomodoro from their tiny student kitchens. It’s not fancy pasta, but everyone seems to have their own family’s version. My friend from Turin insisted on adding around a tablespoon of sugar to his simmering sauce, saying that it took away some of the bite from the acidity in the tomatoes. My friend in Sicily always used whole garlic cloves, never minced. Depending on the day or the mood, red wine might be an addition in the sauce, or it might not. Sometimes it also depended on our budgets, which were stretched to the bare minimum as students in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

To this day, pasta al pomodoro is still one of my favorite comfort meals. On a cold day when I don’t feel like cooking, I know I can pull together the simplest of meals with just a few staple ingredients from my pantry. When the Silver Spoon cookbook debuted in English ten years ago, I rushed out immediately to buy it. I still make recipes from that cookbook, with the lessons I learned from my Italian friends all those many years ago stirring through my head as I work through the printed versions. I know now that cutting the pasta and adding chicken to it is unacceptable, but I also know things like how to make a light-as-air zabaglione custard and a parchment-wrapped whole fish for the ages. The Silver Spoon embodies the time I spent in London, away from family and friends, in a new kind of urban, international family. Through their food and their company, I learned more about the world in a year than I had up to that point in my life, and those friends hold a special place in my heart.

My recipe for pasta al pomodoro below incorporates a few extra ingredients from the Silver Spoon’s version, a free copy of which you can download here. I like to think of it as adding dashes of my time in London — sugar for my Italian friends, and a good, healthy dash of wine (for all the wine I drank on their dime).

I mean, after all the meals I bummed off them, it’s the least I can do.

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