Rebecca Wilcomb talks about tortellini en brodo the way a Cajun talks about gumbo. Every time the chef goes to an Italian restaurant where the menu looks promising, she orders the dish that she grew up making with her Italian grandmother.

“I’ve only had one that has come a close second to hers,” she said of her nonna’s meat-stuffed pasta dumplings in flavorful, light broth. It’s a dish she knows will be waiting each time she steps off the plane in Trecenta, her mother’s hometown in northern Italy.