My Kitchen Rules 2016 Season 7 Episode 08

Luciano and Martino NSW
We share a passion for cooking Italian food. 
Luciano, 49, was one of the first people Martino, 48, met when he moved to Australia 11 years ago. After dancing the night away at Mardi Gras, they became instant friends and began throwing Italian dinner parties showcasing authentic dishes for their lucky friends. Now as they approach 50, they are ready for a big change and cooking just might be the answer.
How do you know each other?
Luciano: We met 11 years ago through a mutual girlfriend of ours. 
Martino: She introduced us and it was during the Mardi Gras and we spent the whole weekend together dancing and partying and we became good friends. And since then we’ve shared the love for, the passion for cooking Italian food.
What is your day job?
Martino: In Italy, I was a high school teacher teaching philosophy and history. Now I’m working for a jewellery company. It means travelling, travelling, travelling. And then MKR arrived, so for me this is a holiday.
Luciano: I’m a flight attendant on long haul. I’ve been in the hospitality industry all my life. I basically do the same thing as a restaurant only 33,000 feet in the air.
Do you only cook Italian?
Luciano: We cook it well because we know it, but we do other cuisines as well. But we are so familiar and so confident with Italian. I could cook you a dish a day for a year and still I wouldn’t double up on a dish, it’s so varied.
Martino: People think there is only one kind of lasagna which there is not, there is about 20 types.
How did you learn to cook?
Luciano: Watching nonna and my mum. And from working in restaurants - just because you are out the front doesn’t mean you don’t know what’s going on in the kitchen.
Martino: And I’ve been close to my mum and my grandmother since I was young. Cooking is not only about food, it’s all about chemisty: you have to put ingredients together and for me it’s really a way to de-stress.
Luciano: And I love entertaining at home too. There’s nothing more satisfying when you know you’ve made something nice and your friends are enjoying it. That just gives me such pleasure. It’s the way we were brought up, especially Italians, around the kitchen, around the food, you go to nonna’s house and before hello it’s: “Are you hungry?” Food has always been in our life.
Who is the head chef in your kitchen?
Martino: When we have to do a dinner together, we do planning and we say because he is very good at kneading the dough or making the fresh pasta, normally he does this sort of thing. I’m more into sauces.
Luciano: He’s very good at his sweets. In the kitchen, he’s the chef and I’m the sous chef. There can’t be two head chefs in the kitchen and we each bring our own individuality to the table. 
Martino: When he does something wrong he starts singing. Luciano: Music is a remedy to lots of things. I could not live without my music.
What’s your favourite Italian dish?
Luciano: I don’t think I could live without pasta. If you said you can’t have pasta for the rest of your life, just kill me. 
Martino: I was a big pasta eater but now I don’t eat pasta too much because you know you have to look after yourself but when I do eat pasta it has to be perfect.
How would you describe your teammate?
Luciano: Easy-going, generous, hard-headed sometimes, reliable, caring, competent and proud.
Martino: He’s a very giving person, he’s so generous - this is the biggest quality of Luciano. I trust him, he’s reliable, he’s trustworthy, he’s amazing.
What’s your biggest weakness in the competition? 
Luciano: Being Capricorns, we’re hard-headed sometimes! 
Martino: Because you’re messy.
Luciano: As long as the end product is there, who cares! He’s probably more organised than me, but I’m getting there