Like mother, like daughter describes the culinary connection between Guarnaschelli and her daughter. The two have cooked together since Clark was very young, both at home in the family kitchen and also at Butter, her mother’s Manhattan restaurant. “Ava and I enjoy such a close relationship,” says Guarnaschelli.
“It's one of my great achievements in life and is certainly similar to how my mother and I were when I was growing up. That said, I can't say cooking is exactly collaborative between me and Ava. She will make something and then I will make something and then we eat dinner.
Ava has her own distinct idea of food and we both wanted to make sure that ‘Cook It Up’ reflected that vision.” Many of us know Guarnaschelli for her numerous appearances on such Food Network shows as “Iron Chef America,” “Chopped,” Supermarket Stakeout” and “The Kitchen,” and/or her cookbooks including “The Home Cook: Recipes to Know by Heart” and “Old-School Comfort Food.” But to understand both Guarnaschelli’s career, her culinary relationship with Ava, and the cookbook they wrote together, it’s necessary to go back into the past to a another mother and daughter culinary connection.
Alex’s mother, Maria Guarnaschelli was described in her New York Times obituary as “a formidable book editor who helped transform American cooking from a domestic chore to a cultural touchstone, and who presided over a major revision of the popular book Joy of Cooking.” “.
