Rima Barkett
No recipe was a family secret in the large, loving family Rima Barkett grew up in Massa-Carrara, Italy. In her mother’s kitchen she learned the love of feeding people and sharing her amazing talent for cooking delicious meals.

Rima brought those traditions with her to the United States in 1996 when she moved here after marrying California businessman Anthony Barkett. She lived the American dream when she opened her own restaurant in Stockton, Calif., in 2002. Her “Café Luna Spaghetteria” quickly became the hip place in town.

In 2006, she sold the restaurant and moved with her husband and 11-year-old daughter to Rome where she is spending a year working on the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, a group sponsored by the Mikhail Gorbachev Foundation and the mayor of Rome, to conference on global humanitarian issues.

Rima has cooked for VIPs – most recently hosting a dinner at her home in Italy for actors and activists George Clooney and Don Cheadle and several Peace Nobel Laureaters – and for VNP, very normal people like her book club, neighbors and, of course, her family. She has been featured in the Los Angeles Times and in the Stockton Record newspaper, Lodi Sentinel and has made television appearances as a guest chef on ABC and CBS.

She perfected her cooking skills at culinary schools Cordon Bleu in Florence and Gambero Rosso in Rome. Her world travels give her a special perspective on food and families sharing meals. She fluently speaks five languages, having studied modern language at the University of Pisa and the University of Damascus. Rima says her love of cooking and her mother’s inspiration in the kitchen has been a main ingredient in the passions she has chosen in her life, including her advocacy for children and for those less fortunate. She and Claudia Pruett, who is co-authoring this book, founded A Tavola Together, a non-profit foundation for teaching kids how to cook healthy, tasty foods. She also serves on the Board of the Child Abuse Prevention Council, as a trustee for Dameron Hospital in Stockton, and as a VP of Architects of Peace Foundation in San Francisco.

The success of her restaurant taught Rima that taking a risk can pay off in great success. It has given her confidence to pursue other dreams, including her dream to share recipes that will bring families together – not only to eat a meal, but to prepare and plan the meal. This is the lesson her mother unwittingly taught her as a child, but in today’s busy world, must be more intentional. Rima and Claudia will present recipes, with shopping lists. Their cookbook will offer ways for younger children to help in the process. They also will show how to stock a pantry with some basics that can be used to prepare a delicious meal on short notice.

Rima believes that nothing brings people closer than spending time around the table where enjoying a meal turns into conversation. Her hope is that the recipes in this book will teach others the love of cooking and feeding other people.