She has enough recipes to fill two more cookbooks. This might be where the scientific side of her is revealed. She tests each recipe at least five times. She has to see how recipes work, and she tests them only when she feels like eating them. She won't test a recipe five days in a row.
Italian food is a normal way of cooking.
It's not chemistry. It has to come new. It has to be spontaneous. And it has to work in the United States, where, unlike Italy, ingredients aren't always the best. They're often shipped from other parts of the country or from around the world, which compromises taste.