Sometimes the Best Ingredient Is the One That Isn't There

To Italophiles, the duke of Urbino-style hat that food writer Faith Heller Willinger wears seems fitting. She is confident culinary nobility, this American expat who has spent more than three decades discovering and promoting the food and wine of her adopted country. And to those who sigh at the mere mention of Firenze, her Florence, where she teaches cooking classes, an audience with the new grandmother constitutes immersion therapy.

The greatest, the best, the most authentic: The details unfold unhurriedly, with the total recall of a bilingual sports geek.

She's currently stateside, on tour to support her fourth book, "Adventures of an Italian Food Lover: With Recipes From 254 of My Very Best Friends" (Clarkson Potter, 2007, $32.50). She's particularly thrilled that her sister painted the watercolor illustrations that run through it.

At a recent book signing at the Dupont Circle FreshFarm Market, Willinger, 61, held court unfazed by the crush of the crowd and the heat in her trademark Moschino sunglasses and scarf, bovine earrings (in honor of butcher Dario Cecchini), loose red T-shirt and khakis. She joked in Italian with Washington chef Cesare Lanfranconi of Ristorante Tosca as he sweated through a cooking demo of ricotta-stuffed zucchini flowers.

Later that day, she answered questions while she savored a casual summer feast at the home of longtime friends Charles Yonkers and Ann Harvey Yonkers, the market's co-director: glasses of cool pinot grigio, seafood salad, grilled bread, a tomato-basil-onion mixture dressed with vinegar and Willinger's hand-carried olive oil (Castello di Ama, her favorite), fresh mozzarella, crab cakes, steamed corn on the cob and slices of melon that she called "melon with prosciutto." Excerpts from the conversation follow.

The prosciutto's missing.

I did a recipe in "Red, White and Greens" for Pasta Poma Sarde al Mare: Pasta With Sardines at Sea. It's a concept that I love. It means they're in the sea -- and not in the dish, which is vegetarian. That's so Italian.

That whole concept guided my life from then on. It sounds like you're actually having something wonderful when you're missing an ingredient.

And you've put olive oil on your corn instead of butter.

I get that from my Tuscan husband, who refuses to admit that butter exists.

It's easy to eat this well in August. What are you eating in Italy, say, in February?

Beans, leeks and potatoes, and onions. Members of the brassica family: kale, cauliflower, cabbage. And tomatoes that have been put up. The great thing about the sauce you made in August is that you've stored it in a glass jar. A tomato from a can doesn't taste like a tomato anymore.