Olga & Giancarlo: living, laughing, and cooking in abundance
In Abbondanza, Olga Leyers and Giancarlo Angeletti take you to the place where they love being together most: the kitchen.
Their cookbook exudes the abundance the title promises: generous, warm, and steeped in their love of experimentation. “We are amateur cooks, but amateur cooks who take cooking very seriously,” Giancarlo and Olga say passionately.
Their culinary adventure began during the lockdown. “Everything was closed and I started cooking for Olga,” Giancarlo recalls. “Not long after, we traveled to Italy together, where we discovered that we have the same taste. It was there that we first floated the idea for a book.”
It remained just an idea for a long time, until Olga's participation in MasterChef set everything in motion. Almost daily, the question came from those around them: when are you finally going to release a cookbook? And now it is here with Abbondanza, literally 'abundance'. “That is simply who we are,” says Olga. “We like to live big: passionately, intensely, with lots of flavor and even more stories. At our place, you should ideally roll out after an evening out. Eaten too much, drunk too much, the music can be loud, and laughter is allowed until deep into the night. We love abundance in every aspect of life.”
Giancarlo adds that the book actually summarizes their daily rhythm. “It is really just how we live,” he says. “Aperitivo for evenings with friends that stick around until time loses all meaning, pasta for busy weekdays when hungry children sit down at the table, and the larger dishes for weekends when time plays no role and everyone stays seated until the last pan is empty.”
Playful bickering in the kitchen
In the kitchen, Olga and Giancarlo enjoy challenging each other, subtly and playfully. “We prefer to crack open a good bottle of wine and try to improve the recipe behind each other’s backs without the other noticing,” laughs Giancarlo. That dynamic sometimes leads to little culinary squabbles. “The minestrone!” shouts Olga. “I love eating it, but Giancarlo was completely fed up with it. Eventually, he came up with a version that everyone enjoys: a broth with fregola and porcini. That recipe, of course, made it into the book.”
Just like the children's favorite pasta. “Pasta with pumpkin is a firm winter favorite, and the summery version with bell peppers and chorizo also always elicits enthusiasm.”
What do Olga and Giancarlo hope to achieve with this book? “That cooking doesn’t have to be complicated and that you can do a lot with few ingredients,” says Giancarlo. “And that people just get started and try it out. We wrote this book for everyone, even for people with little cooking experience. My father, who can’t even fry an egg, proofread everything. If he understands how to prepare a recipe, then you will undoubtedly understand it too,” Olga challenges all readers.
