“Food can make the world bigger. It can change lives.”

Award-winning chef and author Kerry Altiero made this statement in the introduction of his book, “Adventures in Comfort Food.” He expanded on this, and a lot more, at the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library on Friday, Sept. 18.

Altiero owns Cafe Miranda in Rockland and co-hosts the VStv food and cooking show, “Nosh.”

His book features recipes, along with stories and anecdotes about friends and family members. Even if you're not a cook, the short stories and close-up photographs of his delectable-looking dishes make for a good coffee table book.

At the library, Altiero spoke to a roomful of “foodies,” though he said he thinks that word has run its course. “We need to come up with a new word for food lovers.”

He spoke of his restaurant, his recipes and, well, himself. Altiero has a way of drawing people in with his genuine warmth, his enthusiasm for food and just life in general.

In a foreword in his book, the owner of Primo Restaurant in Rockland said this of him: “Kerry is rock and roll. He's one of those badass cooks you want on your side when you're in the weeds. He loves what he does and this permeates every cell in his body, and every page of this book.”

Altiero is a natural when it comes to storytelling. And his animated, outgoing personality makes him a desirable candidate for events that require a master of ceremonies. He has been the host of Claw Down in East Boothbay for the last two years.

“What a terrific event,” Altiero said. “For Cherie (Scott) to herd the cats that are known as chefs to commit to it and pull it off on that scale is really amazing. And the camaraderie of the chefs is great.”

Claw Down event organizer Cherie Scott said Altiero was the obvious choice to emcee the event.

“Kerry is a force of nature,” she said. “He is a chef's chef. To have him as our Claw Down emcee was an honor, as our chefs look up to him with all that he has accomplished in his career, and yet he knows how to keep it real and stay humble.”

Altiero is self-taught.

“I learned about food by understanding the process and understanding the science of food,” he said.

The extensive menu at his restaurant features a wide variety of ethnic choices. He said limiting the number of recipes for his book wasn't easy.

“It was like Sophie's choice. It was terrible. Our menu is ridiculously huge, because I can't make up my mind,” Altiero said. “If you want a chicken dish, there are seven, eight or nine chicken dishes — a couple Italian ones, a couple South American ones, a Thai one.”

He said that food has changed his life. “I'm a bumpkin from the mining hills of Pennsylvania. Now with this book and the staff I've had for over 23 years, and my community, I've been lucky enough to have changed peoples' lives through food. What a gift.

“If you'd told me 20 years ago that I'd be giving a literary talk in a library I'd say that was outrageous. I'm not schooled, I'm not traveled, but I seek out experiences.

“I'd put down 20 bucks and go, 'whatever’,” Altiero said about walking into a restaurant in Chinatown in New York where no one knew English. “And that's the kind of adventurous spirit that Miranda, my crew and the people who are close to me have. That's how you keep an entity fresh, through life, love, work, whatever it is. You keep it moving. You keep adding energy to it.”

There's a recipe in Altiero's book called Auntie Fluffie's Pasta. It consists of cauliflower, butter, garlic, onion, parsley, lemon, Parmesan or Romano cheese, and rigatoni. In his description of it in his book, he writes, “My Auntie Fluffie ... lives in Hollywood, Florida, with her ceramic leopards and leopard-print plates. But back in the ’60s she was a classic babe-in-miniskirt, with a princess phone and spit curls.”

The chef is mindful of treating employees at his restaurant well. “We invest in the people who work with us. I call it investing in human capital. Everybody who works there has a year-round job at a real-world wage. Every business should be doing that.”

Published last November, the book is available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, the Cafe Miranda website, and a number of other online providers, and at Cafe Miranda in Rockland. Altiero said not everyone who has purchased one actually uses it for cooking.

“People tell me they love the book, and I ask if they're cooking with it, and they say 'No, we were looking at it and we go, hey let's go get take-out from Miranda.'”

As for the over-used word, “foodie,” Altiero is offering a free signed book to the person who comes up with the best new word for food-lover. Send entries to: suzithayer@boothbayregister.com.