Domenica Marchetti is a food writer and cookbook author whose first passion is Italian home cooking.

She is the author of The Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy and Big Night In: More Than 100 Wonderful Recipes for Feeding Family and Friends Italian-Style. Her third book, The Glorious Pasta of Italy, will be published in 2011.

Domenica began her professional life as a newspaper reporter and admits that years after she graduated from Columbia School of Journalism, she had rarely written a word about food, “Even though it was the subject I thought about most,” she says.

She set about changing that reality and began writing cookbooks and her blog. She has also written for Food & Wine magazine and other publications. Food & Wine named Big Night In one of the top 25 books of the year.

Domenica grew up in an Italian-American family and says she and her sister learned to shape gnocchi and ravioli “by the time we could see over the kitchen counter.”

Her mother comes from Chieti, a hilltop city in Abruzzo, not far from the Adriatic coast and Domenica’s family spent summers in Italy with her mom’s three sisters—“all great cooks” says Domenica—and traveled the country seeking out the best local food and wine.

As much as she champions Italian food, Domenica has become enamored of the native southern cooking of her adopted state of Virginia. She appreciates the coastal cuisine of the Chesapeake Bay and simple, southern comfort food. The latter is best exemplified by the recipes of cookbook author Edna Lewis, she says.

Domenica lives in northern Virginia with her family. Her website is www.domenicacooks.com/