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| Vanja van der Leeden (photo: Remko Kraaijeveld) |
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Vanja van der Leeden, a Dutch-Indonesian chef and culinary writer, combines her rich cultural background with her experiences living in Italy in her debut cookbook, Italopunk: 145 Recipes to Shock Your Nonna. Formerly a restaurant chef, van der Leeden now focuses on creating nutritious comfort food, writing cookbooks, and producing cooking videos from her home kitchen. Her work reflects her love for strong flavors, culinary experimentation, and the balance between healthy eating and indulgence. Italopunk (Tra Publishing) hits kitchen shelves on July 29, 2025.
You aren't Italian, but Italopunk is clearly written from a place of deep love and understanding of modern Italian cuisine. What inspired this book? What do you hope readers take away from it?
I might not be Italian in this life, but I was in a former life! I have been wanting to write this book for decades. My time in Italy (living in Rome and Florence) inspired the book, but it's also my instinct to look at things from another perspective. I always ask myself "why" a recipe is done in a certain way. Sometimes the answer is satisfactory and sometimes you realize a recipe benefits from evolution. I love Italian cuisine so much, but with all due respect, it could be sexier at times. Italy has such beautiful produce and vegetables, they can be used in more creative ways than as insalata mista or spinach cooked in water and then drained (that's reductive, but still). Living in Italy and speaking the language has made it possible to dive deep into the culture and its cuisine. It has made me look further than the usual clichés, and I hope readers will do the same. I hope they will broaden their Italian recipe repertoire, I hope they will realize that tradition is important for cultural preservation, but without evolution and creativity, a cuisine will die.
You feature several chefs and restaurateurs in the book. Why did you decide to include these profiles and how did you decide who to talk about?
First of all, I wanted some Italian backup to make my message stronger, because who am I? I wanted to show the reader that I am not the only one who thinks Italian recipes need refreshing. If you say something needs to change, you have to show how and in a positive way: respecting tradition and building on that. That's where the chefs come in.
The selection was made by research online, through books (for example The New Cucina Italiana by Laura Lazzaroni) and by following chefs and food photographers on social media. I was not interested in haute cuisine, but elevated trattoria food. Italian cuisine is a people's kitchen, and I wanted to maintain its soul. Therefore, I have chosen chefs that cook trattoria-like comfort food, but of the highest quality. And no Michelin stars.
All the chefs in the book, including you, have strong opinions on ingredients: what to buy, where and when to source them, and how to design meals that align with culinary, social, and ecological values. How should readers shop as they cook through this book?
Italian cuisine is so successful because it's simple. It's simple because the high-quality produce does most of the work for you. If you can, go to a farmers market or a good quality grocery store for your veg, fish, meat, and cheese. It's going to make all the difference. Also, try to follow the seasons. Seasonal produce tastes better, which makes your job (making a delicious meal) easier. Usually it's also more sustainable, although that is a difficult and complex claim to make. Of course you can shop at a supermarket as well, but you might have to add more salt, cheese, anchovies, etc., to make your dish flavorful.
Italopunk is full of recipes, tips and interviews, but it also has the feel of an irreverent travel blog. Tell us about the photo choices. How did you decide what to include and what version or versions of Italy were you hoping to share?
The photos were taken by my husband, Remko Kraaijeveld, who is an acclaimed food photographer in the Netherlands. We made a deal that we wouldn't click the usual cliché stuff that you see in Italian cookbooks. No Fiat 500s, no red Vespas, no nonnas in dark spaces with floured hands, no cypress trees in Tuscany, et cetera. Remko wanted to share the Italy that I experienced while living there. That was a lot more edgy, raw, and adventurous than what the average tourist experiences. With these images, we wanted to say, "If you love Italy, you also need to love its scruffy edges." Remko carefully looked at the colors of the different cities in Italy and reflected those in the backgrounds. We also collected napkins, placemats, vintage ice coupes, and pieces of textile during our trips to Italy for the styling.
If you were to make a meal with only recipes in the book, what would we be eating?
A lot, that's for sure! This question also depends on the season, but let's give it a go. If I was cooking a simple weekday meal, I would make the pasta with chickpeas, chard, and 'nduja (Pasta con ceci, bietola e 'nduja). Or the puttanesca with whole-wheat pasta (Puttanesca integrale). Quick, hearty, and fairly healthy. For a dinner party, I would start with the crudo of sea bass and citrus-samphire salsa (Crudo di spigola), then the savory tarte tatin of eggplant (Tortino alla parmagiana), then carbonara (Carbonara blasfema) with a shot of vodka, and after that a vegetable dish, like roasted bell peppers with anchovy sauce and burrata (Peperoni con bagna cauda e burrata). To finish, either coffee zabaglione (Zabaglione con caffè) or tiramisu with sesame (Tiramisesamo). If we were in summer, I'd go for the whipped buffalo ricotta with strawberries and balsamic (Fragole con balsamico e ricotta). But the peach gelato with thyme and sweet red wine (Pêche elba) is also tempting.
What cookbooks have you loved recently?
Recent books are all Dutch and might not speak to you. I did notice that many involved beans. I keep coming back to books like the Gjelina cookbook (Gjelina: Cooking from Venice, California), Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat and all the Locatelli books (Made in Sicily). And of course I am a big fan of Ottolenghi; my friends actually call me "Yotam van der Leeden." Oh and there's a book on my wish list: Food You Want to Eat by Thomas Straker (August 2025), of London- based restaurant Strakers. --Suzanne Krohn