Italian film star likes to cook

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32959, 4 July 1972, Page 7

Italian film star likes to cook

(By

SUSAN ROGERS

LONDON. With all her other attributes, you would not think Sophia Loren had ever been within a mile of the kitchen. In fact, slaving over a hot stove, it seems, is her favourite way of relaxing. I have heard her described in the past as the tastiest dish to come out of Italy since spaghetti. And now Sophia Loren has published a book devoted to the spectacular dishes she cooks for herself and her friends in her huge mansion at Porto Ercole, near Rome. “I made all my notes for the book,” she says, “while I was in the clinic in Geneva, awaiting the birth of my little I Carlo. GREAT SUCCESS

“After he was born, I was so enchanted with the joy of being a mother that I forgot about it completely. “Then last year, my husband persuaded me to bring it out again. We threw in a 'few photographs, and sent it off, and now it has been a 'great success.” But so it should have been, Isays Miss Loren. Because food, she believes, goes hand [in hand with sex. “After all,” ! she told me, “eating is. a very sensual pleasure, And I have always found that people who really enjoy good food

[generally appreciate the other] delights of life as well. 1 “It is a great pity,” she I says, “that there are so many 'so-called convenience foods ■on the market nowadays. ] “It is true that most i women do not have a great deal of time to spend cooking. There is generally too much else to be done in the house. But there are many dishes which can be made very quickly from fresh ingredients, and they taste so very much better. “A good scalloppine al limone (escalopes of veal with lemon) takes no time at all. It is the same with fonduta (a poshed-up version of toasted cheese).” LOVES FOOD You can see that just talking about food gives Miss Loren great pleasure. And although her slender waistline and hips would seem to put the lie to it, she eats plenty, too. Spaghetti matriciana, she says, is her favourite dish—that is, pasta cooked with cheese, tomato, and bacon.

Miss Loren shares a liking, too, for pork and beans with Marcello Mastroianni. And Cary Grant is crazy about the way she does lobster. So how does she keep that fabulous figure? Her secret is simple. “I weigh myself

every day,” she says, “and if I have put on even lib, then I eat only very lightly, and the next day it is off again. “But for those times when I have to eat lightly,” she laughs, “I am not nearly so happy. Because I adore food, and I love to eat.” Don’t think, though, that she spends all her time thinking about it. Or that she is likely to retire from films in favour of a career in the kitchen. Her professional life is as busy as ever. And although she’makes films only when she really wants to—her latest is “Man of La Mancha” —she is still inundated with offers and scripts. CARLO PONT! “I would not like to give up my work completely,” she .says, “because I adore it. (and I get a great deal of ■satisfaction from it. But if it were ever a question of choosing between by career and my family, there is no question which would come first. “Everything I do now, I do for my man, and he is proud of me for doing it. That is the way it should be with a man and a woman.” Her man, of course, is Carlo Ponti, the producer who discovered her when she was just 16, groomed her for stardom, fell in love with her, and has been devoted to her ever since. There has never been anyone else in her life, Miss Loren says. “And why should there be, when he is all that I want. And now I have his image in his child, and that is perfect. I adore him, and I have always adored him, because he knows exactly how to handle me which, for a man, takes great love and understanding. “He loves me,” she says softly, “he spoils me, he listens to me. he reasons with me. Best of all, if I ever get angry, he just laughs and tells me I look beautiful.

“And how,” she asks, “how can any woman stay angry in those circumstances?” How, indeed? — Features International.