Emer McLysaght: Move over hot girls — it’s time for Stanley Tucci Summer

Picture this: Stanley Tucci, knuckle deep in a glistening pan of focaccia dough, crisp, pale blue shirt rolled up to reveal forearms just the right amount of hirsute and rippling enough to indicate a man who takes care of himself without being a crashing bore about the gym. He’s peering at you over a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and behind him, a double glass door opens on to a garden of lush greenery and fragrant blooms. No matter where you fall on the gender or sexuality spectrums, you’re picturing it, and as he slides that focaccia into the oven and mouths a deep and warm “Perfect”, you just know: You’re ready for Stanley Tucci Summer.

The trend of labelling summers began in earnest in 2019 with the release of the Megan Thee Stallion song Hot Girl Summer, which signalled that it was time for women to unapologetically be themselves, filled with confidence and pizzazz. Inevitably, the Hot Girl Summer concept quickly became tied to aesthetics and unattainable beauty and body standards. Stanley Tucci Summer, meanwhile, is open to everyone.

At the height of lockdown in 2020, a simple video of the American actor making a cocktail went viral online. The pandemic had quickly become a great leveller, as celebrities and plebs alike stuck in their homes were compelled to share the inner workings of their lives with others on the internet. Tucci, all arms, stubble and confusing hot-dad vibes, posted a video of himself making the cocktail — a negroni, how chic — on Instagram and it sent people into flitters. A picture of Tucci standing next to an outdoor pizza oven holding a peel — the giant pizza shovel — like it’s a spear sent similar shock waves around Twitter. We didn’t know it yet, but we were entering the early stages of Peak Tucci. What a time to be alive.

Tucci, now in his early 60s, has been acting since the 1980s. Road to Perdition, The Terminal and The Hunger Games are all on his CV. You might know him best as Anne Hathaway’s older and wiser confidante in The Devil Wears Prada. I consider his greatest roles to be playing Emma Stone’s dad in 2010′s Easy A, and Meryl Streep’s husband in Julie and Julia. In the former his T-shirts are just the right level of tightness, and his delivery is as sassy as a guy playing a heterosexual man can get away with (if anyone can get away with it, it’s Tucci). In Julie and Julia he’s playing Paul Child, adoring husband to chef Julia Child, a role and performance that sums up the energy of Stanley Tucci Summer: eating lovely dinners, relaxing in sunglasses and enveloped in love, pasta or both.

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Stanley Tucci Summer is the culmination of Tucci’s pivot from successful and charismatic character actor to sexy Italian cooking man. He brought out cookbooks in 2012 and 2014, and then last year released his memoir Taste: My Life Through Food. He has his own Anthony Bourdain-esque food and travel series called Searching for Italy, in which he and his forearms dig out the best meals Rome, Tuscany or the Amalfi Coast have to offer. With series two of Searching for Italy under way on CNN, and series one available for all to ogle on YouTube, the gateway for all to lean into Stanley Tucci Summer is well and truly open. So, how can you get involved?

You can start by wearing a lot of linen, or at the very least some crisp cotton. Not great if you, like me, only own an iron for going to weddings or funerals, but as Stanley Tucci Summer is designed to be enjoyed primarily in the comfort of your own home, the creases don’t really matter. You need to embody Tucci’s love of cooking, but more importantly his lust for pasta. I’m old enough to remember the exact day in 1991 when pasta came to rural Kildare, but for Tucci, history and tradition is kneaded into every piece of penne and rigatoni. You can honour this by treating yourself to one of the top three most expensive pastas in the shop, some excellent olive oil and decent crusty bread.

Accompany your Tucciesque meals with the beverage of the summer, the limoncello spritz, which is limoncello, Prosecco and soda water served over ice in a wine glass. Fancy lemonade will do the job just as well. Eat outdoors as much as the treacherous Irish summer will allow, and resist the urge to fall back on the comfort of the hard-boiled eggs and scrolls of damp ham. Yes, the Irish summer salad is beloved, but it just doesn’t have a place in Stanley Tucci Summer.

Finally, just embody the spirit of Tucci himself, regardless of your age or gender. You are sexy, you are effortless, you know just how far to roll up your shirt sleeves. Buy that pasta; the summer is yours.