Food really matters to Stanley Tucci. After all, the actor’s breakthrough role came as a 1950s Italian American restaurateur in the 1996 film Big Night (which he co-directed with Campbell Scott). Later, he played Julia Child’s husband, Paul, in Julie & Julia. He’s published a pair of cookbooks, filmed two seasons of Searching for Italy, an Emmy Award–winning series that has Tucci eating his way around the Bel Paese (a third season will air on Nat Geo), and written a well-received memoir, Taste: My Life Through Food (2021). And that’s not even counting the videos of Tucci mixing cocktails that went viral on his social media accounts during the early days of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Now Tucci, 63, is back with a second memoir, What I Ate in One Year (And Related Thoughts) (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster, Oct. 15), which, as the title suggests, documents 365 days of cooking, eating, travel, film work, home life, and more. Our reviewer calls it a “charming and sometimes touching glimpse into the life of an actor and gourmand.” We caught up with the peripatetic actor on Zoom from London, where he lives with wife Felicity Blunt and their children. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Are you a regular diary keeper?

No, I did it for the purpose of writing the book. I have a lot of notebooks filled with thoughts, ideas, musings—but never anything consistent. Felicity is the one who suggested this, and I thought it was a great idea.

You have a busy life. Was it difficult to get in the habit of writing in the diary every single day?

At first it was, and then it just became part of what I did. I couldn’t do it every single day, but I might make a note and then backtrack a couple days. But I was pretty consistent. I really liked doing it, and now I miss it.

It forces you to reflect and not just let life rush past you.

Exactly. You learn a lot by going back through your day. You learn a lot about yourself.

I pick up on a philosophy of food from the book: You like simple food, simply but well prepared. And patience is a virtue in the kitchen.

Patience is a virtue in the kitchen. My mother has it. My son Nicolo has it. My wife has it. My late wife had it. I don’t have it. I’ll try to do too many things at once, as opposed to focusing on just one thing. I have patience when I’m acting or when I’m writing—I become quite forensic—but I also hate waiting. I hate waiting on a set to act, but when I’m acting, that’s fine. When I’m waiting to act, I just want to go home and cook.

Besides being impatient, what are you like in the kitchen? Do you like to be the boss? Or cook collaboratively with friends?

It depends on the people and what we’re preparing. Everybody has a different way of roasting a chicken, for instance. I want to know how they do it, and I want to learn from them, or we put our heads together and figure it out. But there are some people who should never be in the kitchen with you. I mean, they don’t know how to chop a fucking piece of celery or something. I’m always like, “No, no, it’s all right. I got it. There, have a glass of wine.” They can talk to me, but they can’t talk to me too much. Otherwise, I can’t. People want to talk to you while you’re cooking, but the ones who don’t cook don’t understand that it takes focus at certain times where you literally cannot engage in conversation or you’re going to have a really shitty meal.

And nobody wants that. You write about plenty of shitty meals in the book—bad food on the set, mediocre restaurant food. How do you deal with the disappointment?

You get annoyed because, let’s face it, it’s not cheap to eat out. You go to a place and a glass of wine is $15—why the fuck is that wine $15? I mean, we know why it’s $15, because it costs a lot of money to run a restaurant, and booze is where they make their profit. It’s an incredibly hard business. But there are people who are inventive and really understand good food and simple cooking without pretension—that’s the stuff I’m looking for. Like going to a great Japanese restaurant. There’s a real complexity to it, and yet it’s also some really, really simple stuff. It’s the quality of everything that makes a difference.

The ingredients.

The ingredients. I do find it annoying when people are putting all this stuff into one dish. You explained it for a half an hour, first of all, it had so many ingredients in it. Then I ate it, and it’s like, Did it need all those ingredients? I can’t taste all those ingredients. So why are they there? They’re there so you can tell me that they’re in there, and nobody else is doing that. I don’t really care. I just want it to taste good. And then you get the bill, and you’re like, Really? Am I paying you for the ingredients, or am I paying you for the amount of time it took you to tell me how many ingredients are in it?

It’s easier to stay home and cook for yourself and your family.

That’s why my mother never goes out to dinner. She hates it. My father goes, “Let’s go out.” She goes, “Why?” He goes, “Well, I just thought—” “No.” I mean, it’s over, that’s it.

It seems like cooking is a family activity for you. You write about the joy of cooking with your kids, like a pesto you make with your 8-year-old son.

Matteo made a wild garlic pesto—so cute. He was chopping herbs with the mezzaluna and was just so excited that it was a sharp object and he was allowed to use it. And then with the mortar and pestle, beating it to death. The more you can engage kids in stuff like that, the better.

What’s your go-to meal? The meal that you just love to cook and to eat and want to have all the time?

Probably something really simple, like pasta with tomato, or pasta e fagioli—pasta with beans. Or minestrone soup. Or a really great fucking hamburger. A great hamburger is one of the greatest things in the world, and I couldn’t eat them for a long time after my radiation treatment. [Tucci was treated for oral cancer in 2018 and is in remission.] Now I’m able to eat them more. And I love them. I love them, but they have to have enough fat in them. I’m obsessed with the fat-to-meat ratio.

I’m with you on spaghetti and tomato sauce. I make it all the time, and it always satisfies.

I’ll have tomato sauce for breakfast, with scrambled eggs. Do you know what I mean? Not too much sauce, just a little hint of it, and then you scramble the eggs in it, and it gives you everything you need. An incredible meal in one dish.

What’s next for you? Another cookbook?

Does the world need another cookbook from me? Probably not, but musings on food maybe? I don’t know. I don’t have any plans to write another book right now. But I do miss writing this one. 

Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.