Hepburn’s son shares memories

By Jocelyn Noveck

AP National Writer

NEW YORK

Think of Audrey Hepburn, and your mind will likely conjure up an extraordinarily elegant woman in a boat-necked black dress, huge sunglasses, gloves to the elbow, and a chic updo.

It’s doubtful you’ll picture a woman in jeans and T-shirt settling down in front of the TV with a plate of penne and – gasp! – ketchup.

But that’s the image that her son, Luca Dotti, wants you to get to know. In “Audrey at Home,” an inviting cookbook filled with intimate family photos and memories, he paints a picture of a woman who was happier at home than on a movie set or, really, anywhere else – even though the press, he says, had a hard time believing that.

“Yes, she was an international star, but she was Mrs. Dotti to me,” says Dotti, a Rome-based graphic designer who is the son of Hepburn and her second husband, Andrea Dotti. “And she loved her home life the most. I wanted to bring these two worlds together, the public perception of her, and the woman that I knew.”

The inspiration for the book came, Dotti says, from a binder he found in his mother’s kitchen, filled with recipes and little notes.

“It was from the ‘50s when she had just gotten married and was starting out as a wife,” Dotti says. “They were mostly elaborate and fancy recipes. But in the end, she eventually came to what worked for her and what reflected her style and her life.” Those simpler recipes, he says, form the core of the book.

And so, for example, Dotti begins with hutspot, a nod to Holland, where Hepburn spent her difficult youth, nearly starving during World War II.

“The Nazis had deprived Holland of all forms of sustainability. My mother had to eat turnips and boiled grass,” Dotti says. Hutspot is a puree of carrots, potatoes and onions, in this case with beef added.

The point of the cookbook, and of Hepburn’s own cooking, was not to display chef-quality talents.

“This wasn’t about excelling in cooking,” Dotti says. “My mother wasn’t really interested in that. She simply liked food as a way to get her family together.”

But what of that penne with ketchup?

Dotti suspects it’s the British part of Hepburn that created a fondness for this dish, the ketchup resembling a sauce of baked beans.

His mother loved organic vegetables and treasured her own garden, yet still liked to indulge in this “junk food,” as her son calls it.

“It sounds terrible, but actually it’s pretty good!” Dotti says. “We ate it when it was just the two of us, in front of the TV.” His recipe calls for penne, extra virgin olive oil, emmentaler cheese — and some Heinz ketchup.