Despite her non-Italian surname, Bowerman is a native of Puglia in southwestern Italy. She lived over a decade in the U.S., in California and Austin, Texas; her English faculty, in addition to her restaurant prominence and knowledge, has made her a frequent presence on American food shows on Italy in recent years.
In somewhat of a corollary to her assertion, dry pasta is both the Italian item that is most cooked by Americans and resonates most as Italian. Of course, the way we cook pasta in America is different than is done in Italy, usually with exuberance, fewer or no rules, and typically much more sauce. Pasta can be delicious in Italian, or not.