Previously on anything's possible.

The 20th century is when Italian start eating pasta regularly and...

Wait, you're telling me that pasta wasn't a big thing in Italy until the 1900s?

That's right.

Spaghetti, Lassasasina, it's tasty, it's crunchy, and you can never stop eating it.

A lot of people, even in Italy,

don't know about it.

People must know about it.

Like you're putting all this work in and then like what if the book you know doesn't sell you are a great

Storyteller and you're a great writer and like you even say you're not a chef

This is the sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show we obsess about food to learn more about people.

And this is episode 3 of anything possible, a four-part series

giving you the inside story of the making of my first cookbook. By the end, you'll never

look at a cookbook the same way again. If you haven't listened to parts one and two yet, please go back and start there.

Hey, before we get into it, I do want to mention that throughout this series I'm sharing photos and

videos of the whole process on my Instagram. I even posted a video of the scene in the kitchen at

A Sorso Preferito in Barry, with everyone arguing over how to make spaghetti al-A-Sasina,

it's pretty priceless. So check all that out and follow me on Instagram at the Sportful.

All right, let's do this. When I set out to write my cookbook, my pasta fairy godmother, Evan Kliman, warned me.

She said Americans writing about Italian food often get caught up in the romance and nostalgia of Italy.

They end up rehashing the same old traditional recipes with the same photos of the hills of Tuscany

and Nona's an aprons caked in flour. I return from Italy more determined than ever to avoid these tropes.

...