PETRI: BETWEEN THE COVERS + BOOKS & COOKS

12 Dec PETRI: BETWEEN THE COVERS + BOOKS & COOKS

Verano by river with Squash Blossoms, by his wife Nancy Branyas

How does gnocchi with braised short ribs sauce sound? Does a roasted chicken limone appeal? Want to know how to make a bona fide Caesar salad?

Ask a lawyer.

Not just any lawyer.

Ask Verano (Vern) Petri.

In addition to being a super lawyer who has excelled in pharmaceutical and medical litigation, he is also the author of “Tuscany al Verano: The Culinary Journey from Lucca.”

Petri, a part-time local, will be in Telluride for a double header. Tuesday, December 18, 6 – 8 p.m., he appears at Between the Covers Bookstore for a book signing. Wednesday, December 19, noon, Petri is guest chef at a special Books & Cooks at the five-star Wilkinson Public Library.

As a young boy, Petri often had to provide food for his elderly grandparents who raised him after his mother left for America when he was three years old. (His father, in Lucca, was forced to hide during the German invasion.) It was from his Nonna Rosina that Petri came to understand the simple delicacy of Italian rustic cooking.

Petri came to meet his mother in America right after the war in 1946 and thrived. After serving in counter-intelligence – yes, the guy was a spy – he went on to earn a law degree from his undergraduate alma mater, Indiana University. (He opted for a career in law over the FBI, which offered a gig.) For eight years, Petri served as the State’s Prosecuting Attorney. He was also President of the State’s Attorneys Association. The law practice he ran often represented widows and orphans wronged by corporate greed.

But Petri’s ties to Lucca remained strong. He is a member of the Chicago chapter of the Lucchesi Nel Mondo Association, an arm of the Chamber of Commerce of Lucca. In 2010, he was awarded a gold medal from the organization, presented annually to those Lucchesi who have distinguished themselves in a foreign country.

And in the kitchen?

Petri claimed never to have stopped being that little boy from Lucca, who foraged for fresh vegetables, ucelletti and wild game. And for 20 years, he collected family recipes, cooking tips picked up in the back kitchens of Northern Italian restaurants, saved on paper napkins.

Petri studied culinary arts at Italian cooking schools near Florence, but went on to merge his disparate influences to create his own unique style, often using freshly picked herbs and vegetables from his garden.

Vern’s wife, Dr. Nancy Branyas, shot all the images for the cookbook

“Tuscany al Verano: The Culinary Journey from Lucca” is a culinary and personal history of survival, advancement, and accomplishment. Through its pages, we are transported back to the Tuscan countryside to San Donato, outside the walls of Lucca, where the author/chef was born and raised.

To learn more, click the “play” button and listen to my chat with Vern Petri.