When I was a kid, for my birthday every year, my mother made me pasta bechamel, which is rigatoni with a white cream sauce.

In this reminiscence, De Laurentiis ties food to family ritual and identity: a specific dish becomes a yearly marker of celebration and maternal care. The detail—rigatoni in béchamel—signals an Italian(-American) culinary inheritance and the way “special occasion” foods can carry emotional weight beyond their ingredients. The quote also reflects her public persona as a chef-storyteller, using personal memory to make cuisine approachable and intimate. It suggests that taste is shaped early by tradition, and that comfort foods often originate in repeated, loving domestic practices rather than in restaurants or professional kitchens.