b'a note from the chefAt the age of 17, a time when most young men are happy to just stay home and hang out with their friends, I fulfilled my lifelong dream of coming to America. It was about 35 years ago thatI arrived in the United States, full of ambitions and hope. As I learned, life has a funny way of teaching us lessons; most times the message is delivered with unceremonious bluntness and a harsh dose of reality. Even for a born optimist like me, there were many times, following some of my most harrowing failures, when I started to doubt the fulfillment of my dreams. During the first few years of my American adventure, I missed my family terribly. I was alonein a foreign land and spoke broken Englishand there were only so many hamburgers thatI could eat before I started to miss my mothers cooking.Thats exactly how it happened: In an attempt to recreate my own family dishesthoseincredible culinary masterpieces that were the cornerstone of every happy moment of my life I accidentally stumbled onto a new career path. It was not until I connected with my own passion for cooking, however, that I took a chance on myself andagainst all odds, and to my greatsurprisefound myself on the path that got me here today.Life might not have gone exactly the way I had planned it, but in the end, I got far more than I had ever dreamed of, even if I did not recognize it while it was happening to me.I think of cooking as a storytelling process in which each ingredient is like a character in my story. When I cook, I think of my family and the stories we used to share around our dinner table, in our family kitchen.In this book, I wanted to share with all my readers a set of different stories from some of myfavorite culinary friends. In the process, I discovered a whole new universe of great recipes and an immense number of new pairings, techniques and flavors. It turns out that the most beautiful stories are not always the ones we know, but the ones wediscover along the way. At the age of 52, working on this project, I felt as if Id been transformed into a youngster who is experiencing a world of wonderments and great food for the very first time. Thats what my latest book and television series have been for me: the adventure of a life-time. I wanted everyone to tell their story through their food, their own wayand what came out was far more beautiful than I had anticipated.Some men get lucky, sometimes, in life; some men know it, and some men dont. With thisvolume of Nick Stellino Cooking with Friends, I got very, very lucky, and the best part was thatI knew it, too! I hope you will enjoy this book; it is me at my happiest!12'