Katie Parla is quickly becoming one of the great modern encyclopedists of regional Italian cooking. Her own cookbooks include Tasting Rome (with Kristina Gill) and Food of the Italian South, and she also authored National Geographic’s Walking Rome: The Best of the City and Eater’s “The 38 Essential Rome Restaurants.”

In addition, she’s co-written a couple of other great contemporary bangers: American Sfoglino with Evan Funke and The Joy of Pizza with Dan Richer. Her writing straddles the perfect line between academic and historical context and a deep joy of eating—you learn a lot from reading her books, but you also feel the need to stop what you’re doing (unless you’re watching Ted Lasso) and make u sfinciuni (onion and tomato flatbread), panelle (chickpea fritters), and impepata di cozze (mussels with black pepper).