5 comments about The Mafia Cookbook: Revised and Expanded.

1. I was very pleased with this cookbook purchase. I have numerous cookbooks, but this is becoming a favorite already. Yes, it may not be traditional Italian food, but who cares as long as it tastes good. Those that mock adding dry mustard and chicken stock to marinara sauce obviously have not tried this delicious recipe. The Pasta Marinara and the Veal Marsala have received great reviews from those I have served it to. I'm going to purchase a few copies as gifts because people have been requesting the recipes. I'm no chef, but I know what I like. Try the recipes before you decide just how "authentic" they are. I think you'll be pleased with the flavors and how easy they are to prepare. Two thumbs up!



2. Great Italian-American cookbook! I like the size of it. Very impressive recipes. I often wonder why a great cook like this does not open his own restaurant! With his reputation and great food it would be a win-win situation!
   
   This book is for Italian food lovers as well as Mafia buffs. It is worth the price.



3. The stories in this book are hilarious and if you've ever met one of these guys it is even funnier. But that's another story and I only speak metaphorically because I don't want the FBI searching my underwear drawer. Not that there's anything there...
   
   The recipes are relatively easy to prepare. Not all are Italian, but most of the recipes we have tried have been delicious. This will not be on your shelf for being the definitive Italian or Italian American cookbook, The Mafia Cookbook will just remind you of slightly dangerous stories every time you think of the specific dishes. Plus you will learn a thing or two to help you identify the bad boys and separate them from the G-men.



4. Love the recipes and the stories that go with them. Very good cook book.



5. Looked forever for a good chicken marsala recipe, The best one I have ever found is inside this book. For that recipe alone it is worth it. To be honest I have never tried any of the other recipes, and I have owned this book for years.

1 comments about The Best Italian Classics (Best Recipe Classics).

1. Just as all the other books and their magazines, this book will not let you down. The recipies are wonderful. There are great explanations for each step and a story for how the recipe came about. It is a must have for your kitchen. The chicken picata recipe is to die for.

3 comments about Rocco's Italian-American.

1. `Rocco's Italian American' by Rocco DiSpirito, his mother, Nicolina DiSpirito, and freelance writer Nina Lalli screams CELEBRITY CHEF Cookbook with the number of pages dedicated to current and historical snapshots of the principle authors, Rocco and Mama. This book was also almost a certainty after the featured role of Mama's meatballs in the two Mark Burnett `The Restaurant' reality shows. You just knew that there was a book in the works that featured a recipe for these meatballs.
   
   Rocco's principle premise for these recipes is that `Italian-American' cuisine is no less genuine and involves no compromises of `genuine' Italian cooking because it is not exactly the same as that done in Campagnia or Apulia or Lazio or Tuscany or the Veneto. In fact, Rocco claims to have very little knowledge of native Italian cuisine compared to Marcella Hazan or Food Network colleague Mario Batali. I really have no difficulty whatsoever accepting Rocco's position here, and, neither to a lot of respected cookbook authors, as such leading names as Lydia Bastianich and John Mariani have written important books on Italian-American cuisine.
   
   Before the book gets to the recipes, it spends the better part of seventy pages giving us brief memoirs from both Mamma and Rocco. As Nicolina can write neither English nor Italian, I am sure that one of Ms. Lalli's principle jobs was to transcribe and edit Mamma's oral history. While Mamma concentrates on the truly difficult childhood due to poverty of their family in 1930's Italy, followed by the premature death of her father, Rocco's story concentrates on his experiences and enthusiasm for food starting at a very early age. Both stories are interesting, but they lack the kind of spark that enlivens the best memoirs of childhood and the struggle to survive in difficult circumstances. Unlike tales of childhood memories of Jacques Pepin in `The Apprentice' and of Gennaro Contaldo in `Passione', there is practically no art and little intellectual interest in these stories. Rocco has done very little to repair the opinion I formed of him in the course of viewing the two `The Restaurant' shows where he was seen as a self-absorbed, inept manager who probably lied and certainly acted petty in dealings with his financial backer. Not that his backer was a model of probity, Rocco did more to create drama for the camera than he did to rescue the fate of his `Rocco's on 22nd' restaurant. He tried to play to the house like Emeril or Wolfgang without the business sense both of these men seem to maintain.
   
   Since there are several important books out on the `Italian-American' cuisine, it is very easy to evaluate Rocco and Mama's recipes against an independent standard. The obvious place to start is with Mamma's meatballs. But, to make this recipe, you need `Mamma's sauce' made primarily with Red Pack tomato puree, sugar, chicken stock, garlic, onions, and tomato paste. I confess I find this sauce a weak entry compared to Mario Batali's basic sauce which uses whole tomatoes, carrots instead of sugar, and no stock, and can be completed in about half the time, 45 instead of 90 minutes. Mamma's meatballs themselves are very similar to my favorite recipe in `Italian Classics' by `Cooks Illustrated' except that instead of chicken stock, it uses buttermilk or yogurt and instead of bread crumbs, it uses torn white bread. Against this standard, I find nothing special in Mamma's recipe. Rocco's Puttanesca recipe is also nothing special when measured against `Cooks Illustrated' and other models I've seen. It's weakest point is that Rocco requires that you use 2 cups of Mama's Marinara which takes 90 minutes to make plus 20 minutes of cooking for the Puttanesca itself. All other recipes are self-contained, starting from pantry ingredients and often taking little more than 15 minutes from prep to finish instead of Rocco's 20 minutes of cooking. Rocco's spaghetti Carbonara is an odd mixture of influences. He is cooking Italian-AMERICAN, but he is insisting on pancetta that I suspect was hard to get even by most poor Italian-Americans in a Queens Latino neighborhood. On the other hand, this is a Roman dish and Rocco is using Parmigiano-Reggiano instead of including the more traditional Pecorino Romano.
   
   On the other hand, Rocco's recipe for Caesar Salad is about as true to tradition as you can get with raw egg and anchovies and all. I especially liked Rocco's recipe for Mama's everyday bread prepared using the well technique in much the same way as one may make fresh pasta. This yeast recipe is both very simple and economical with the use of yeast, unlike Jamie Oliver's recipe using three packets of yeast. Both are good, Rocco's is simpler.
   
   Rocco and his designers at publisher Hyperion have chosen a very odd arrangement for the color pictures depicting various cooking techniques, in that they have put them all together in a single `rotogravure' section in the back of the book. I'm sure this was done to maintain a very nicely modest list price, but it doesn't help the cook who is trying to follow a procedure and must switch back and forth to make any sense of the text and the pictures together.
   
   The final section on `The Italian-American Pantry' is pretty good. I did find it odd that there are no stock recipes in the book, and no comment about using canned stock. Especially missing is a recipe for a mushroom stock, although several recipes call for this ingredient and I have never seen this ingredient in my local megamart.
   
   Aside from the inconvenient picture layout, this is a very good autobiographical cookbook by a very talented professional chef, but if I were to want a reference on `Italian-American' cuisine, I might prefer Lydia Bastianich's much larger and more professional offering on the subject. If I wanted Italian home cooking, I think `Eleanora's Kitchen' by Eleanora Scarpetta may be just as good.
   
   Interesting and worthwhile if you don't already own a lot of Italian cookbooks.



2. I just bought the book and haven't tried the recipes yet. I'm sure they're good, because they look like the Italian home cooking I was raised on. To be fair, those holding it up to the standard set by "Taste" are comparing cutting edge restaurant recipes to "just like mama used to make." That's apples and oranges.
   
   I find one glaring shortcoming in the book already though, which is that it seems to have been poorly edited (sloppily or hastily assembled). Some recipes list the same ingredients twice. Some names are almost comically misspelled. The dust cover lists Classic Tiramisu - its not in the book. The fish section says "a dozen recipes" - there are only ten. And on and on. They probably wanted this one on the shelves for the holidays, but if I could find these errors in a half-hour, how hard could it have been for them to pick up on the fact that featured recipes aren't there?



3. The book is like a treasure,it has all the italian dishes that my family has made for years, but never wrote down.All are very easily explained and simple to follow,I am no where a good cook but these receipes sure make me appear to be a professional.Thanks Mama and Rocco for taking the time to put these together. And,the stories make me feel closer to both of you, thanks again for sharing your family memories.This is a definite, for all who love italian cooking. Cynthia M.

5 comments about The Figs Table: More Than 100 Recipes for Pizzas, Pastas, Salads, and Desserts.

1. So far I've mainly made the pizza recipes in this book, but they alone are worth the price. The crust recipe is heavenly and quite easy to make. The dough balls are so light and fluffy after rising that they practically float off the board. They hardly need any working and cook in 6-7 minutes on a baking stone into a uniquely thin, light, crunchy and tasty crust.

   One thing to watch out for, however, is that English specifies fresh yeast for the pizza dough. I had trouble finding that, so I used the active dry yeast commonly found in supermarkets, and after one try it worked perfectly. The equivalent measure for the two teaspoons of fresh yeast is one generous teaspoon of active dry. Also, dissolve the dry yeast in the water/oil liquid (at 115 degrees F) just prior to mixing, rather than putting it in with the dry ingredients as specified for the fresh yeast. If there's a fault to the book, it's that English doesn't help you much with substitutions like this that vary from his ideal.

   The pizza toppings are imaginative and yummy, and can inspire you to create your own. English tends to be a bit minimalist, however, so we sometimes increase the cheese and some other topping ingredients.

   I've also made the white-chocolate challah pudding, which lives up to its billing as "sex on a spoon". Be sure you have plenty of people to share it, however, or you'll wind up with a big pan of incredibly delicious but super-rich pudding calling to you from the fridge for days.

   It's a uniquely great cookbook. I look forward to working through the other recipes.




2. This cookbook is one of my favorites. Right now, the roasted tomato sauce is bubbling away in my oven. Picture this: fresh or even canned plummed tomatoes, sliced onion, olive oil, herbs--simply dump it all in a roasting pan, come back in an hour and you've got a superb sauce. Most of the recipes are this simple: honest, fresh, quality ingredients, simply prepared, with great results.
   
   Todd English would not want to know how many friends have hand-copied recipes from my Figs Table cookbook--his publisher might sue me. I live near Boston, so everyone knows and loves Figs restaurant and the foodies will always spot the book in my kitchen and want to page through it. Inevitably, they will ask for pen and paper to copy recipes. I do think SOME of them actually bought the book.
   
   In addition to the roasted tomato sauce, Olivia's chicken is another recipe I make at least a couple of times a month. I need to buy a pizza stone so that I can try the pizza recipes. I have had great luck with every recipe from this book.
   You won't be dissappointed if you buy this book.



3. After thoroughly enjoying the Olives cookbook and Olives dessert, I was disapointed at the simplicity of this cookbook. I was expecting more eye opening dishes from the master of Mediterranean cooking.



4. rated by our cook club members.
   we gather together once a week, to experice and learn a new dish each time for the past few yrs,
   we hv used many different cook books, but his book is always the favorite among all of us.
   it is not only clearly stated " how to....", but also "simple and down to earth" food, not the fancy ones u see among other cook books.



5. I've been living in Charlestown for a little over three years now and over that time have come to love and feel at home at both Olives and Figs. This book does a wonderful job of capturing the things I love about Figs. So far I have made several recipes including the the pizza dough, mushroom puree, mushroom pizza, portobello burger, and couscous carbonara and all have been delicious. What is especially wonderful is that they taste identical to what you've had in the restaurant so you won't feel like English is holding back a secret or that these recipes can only be perfected with ingredients that represent the creme de la creme (although good ingredients certainly don't hurt.)
   
   Yes, olive oil, cream, and cheese are common ingredients but if you're watching your waistline it's easy to cut back on these items slightly to make them a bit more healthy. As a previous reviewer mentioned, the pizza dough is great. It has an interesting taffy-like texture and when rolled out thin, bakes up light, crispy and perfect, even on an inexpensive baking pan.
   
   While some of the recipes do require prepping components like a puree or an aioli ahead of time many of these things store well in the refrigerator so you can easily make some components ahead of time. I made the dough, for example, on a weekend, divided into balls that could be stored in the refrigerator and baked them up during the week. The book also mentions that the dough freezes well.
   
   The only thing I do wish is that they would reissue the cookbook as there are many new pizzas on the menu that are not included in the book. However, this is a small nit as everything in the book is fantastic and easy to master.

2 comments about The Best of Gourmet: Sixty-five Years, Sixty-five Favorite Recipes (Best of Gourmet).

1. `The Best of Gourmet 2007' is a 65th Anniversary edition of recipes collected from `Gourmet' of both the last year and from the previous 65 (up to 2005) years. In most ways, it is very similar to `The Best of Gourmet 2006', which means it's an excellent source of menus for entertaining 6 to 8 people at dinner on a regular basis, when you have an aversion to repeating yourself too often.
   
   The book begins with the collection of 65 `favorite' recipes. This collection is not uniformly easy, difficult, or popular. Some, like their versions of cabbage and noodles and Caesar salad, are simple and common while the chocolate souffle cake and the Vietnamese Pho Bo (Hanoi Beef Noodle soup) are complex and exotic. This makes the section good foodie reading, to see what it is which tickles the fancy of the `Gourmet' editors.
   
   As with all `Gourmet' recipes, at least all I've seen over the past four years that I've been reading the magazine, the instructions are detailed and quite precise; however, being true to the magazine's name, they have something about them which makes them more interesting than the average `Joy of Cooking' or even `Good Housekeeping' recipe. The very best thing about the selection of `Gourmet' recipes for me is that they carry lots of recipes for classic types of dishes which are simply a bit beyond the pale of the '30 Minute Meal' crowd. This includes recipes for gratins, tarts, breads, crackers(!), souffles, braises, cakes, pies, and assembled desserts such as a charlotte. The excellent index does, however, provide nifty little clock icons by each recipe that can be done in that famous '30 minutes' or less. This being `Gourmet', I may take this with a grain of salt, and stick with Rachael Ray if you are seriously interested in FAST dishes.
   
   After the '65 Favorite Recipes' comes 18 menus, with each recipe within a menu calibrated to produce the same number of servings, something not everyone with the same objective can seem to pull off. There is no obvious pattern to the choice or arrangement of menus. The overriding criterion was, I'm sure, did it appear in `Gourmet' in the previous 12 months (in 2006, actually). Some are oriented to a location (New Mexico, Naples, Greek Seaside, Provence), some are keyed to a season (summer, winter, fall harvest), some are for a specific meal (breakfast, lunch, supper), and some are for a particular holiday (Lunar New Year, Thanksgiving (2), Christmas cocktail party, Christmas feast). The shotgun selection is less random if you happen to own several of the previous yearly `Gourmet' collections. Put them all together and you have a really fine collection of hundreds of different menus, all with the `Gourmet' imprimatur. This is by far the best auxiliary I know of to a copy of Martha Stewart's classic `Entertaining'. It's even better than anything I've seen from Martha and company. Each menu, even those for breakfast, include one or more wine selections for the menu, and they are very specific, down to the chateau and vintage year! About half of these recipes are showcased in quarter, half, or full-page pics. Unfortunately, the good editors are often not able to put the recipe and pic on the same or facing pages. Pity.
   
   Following the 18 menus, with approximately 100 recipes, is `The Recipe Compendium', with a dozen or more recipes in each of the following categories:
   
   Appetizers
   Breads
   Soups
   Fish and Shellfish
   Meats
   Poultry
   Breakfast, Brunch, and Sandwiches
   Pasta and Grains
   Vegetables
   Salads
   Condiments and sauces
   Desserts
   
   These recipes are not accompanied by photographs. Unlike the menu recipes, they are almost uniformly calibrated to `Serve 4'. This is nice, as it makes it a lot easier to match up recipes to create a menu of your own. All recipes also contain two timings, one is `active' time and the other is `start to finish'.
   
   Where appropriate, each recipe also cites special equipment and references to a `Sources' glossary where the ingredient or equipment is not available at the typical supermarket. I found two quirks in these features. One was the fact that sometimes there were references to `Sources', but the item was nowhere to be found in this glossary. The other was the reference to an `adjustable-blade slicer'. Now in a moment of cognitive befuddlement, I could not for the life of me imagine what that was, until I realized they were talking about a mandoline! This is a case like those in cookbooks translated from the French where `Herbes de Provence' is translated to `French herb collection'. The fact is that anyone who owns three cookbooks and watches the Food Network at least 2 hours a week will know what `mandoline' and `herbes de Provence' mean, and will be befuddled by a `translation'. But so much for that little linguistic rant.
   
   At a list price of $40, these books are just a bit pricy, but there is a great synergy to be had in owning several in the series. If you are really interesting in cooking and have little interest in travel or expensive restaurants, the cost of these books is a far better investment than the cost of 12 issues of `Gourmet'. One can hope that Conde Nast will come out with an index to all these volumes (It may exist, I haven't looked for it yet).
   
   Great resource for entertaining.



2. The Best of Gourmet 2007 is a collection of popular recipes featured in Gourmet Magazine. It is also a must-have for anyone who wishes to produce a meal or dessert that is out of the ordinary. If you want to dazzle your guests or surprise the green-bean casserole lot at the next potluck, use one of the recipes in this book.
   
   I was recently asked to prepare some desserts for a Christmas-themed cocktail party. Besides a fruit tarte, cheesecake, and small assortment of pastries, the hostess asked if I would make a red velvet cake. I wanted to do something different, something unexpected, because a red velvet cake is really just a chocolate cake with a lot of food coloring.
   
   Anyway, I used a white chocolate cream cheese frosting and decorated the cake with a recipe I found in The Best of Gourmet. The recipe calls for rice noodles, soaked in water, dried, deep fried, and sprinkled with sugar. In the book, these resemble great white coral leaves and are placed on top of a mound of mango sorbet. I did a little twist. I shaped the noodles to resemble snowflakes, then sprinkled them with sparkling/silver sugar. I had these sticking out of the top and sides of the cake and it looked amazing. It was easy, spectacular, and completely unexpected.
   
   The recipes can be complicated but are well worth the effort.
   
   The unique recipes, fabulous layout, and clever "menu" concept make this a book that is easy for me to recommend.

5 comments about Marcella's Italian Kitchen.

1. It has excellent, very detailed section on ingredients and general rules of Italian cooking methods. I wish this section had been included in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking to make the book more detailed reference. My suggestion is to buy Essential (probably you already have one if you are reading this comment) and read Kitchen at your local bookstore.



2. This is an excellent and wonderful book! While other Italian cookbooks tend toward fanfare and no substance this book is full of great recipes (I have tried about 20 of them and recipes were easy to follow and dishes are full of flavor. Each name of the recipe is listed in Italian and a American name is given (e.g. Fileto col Pamigiano, Tenderloine Fillet with Parmesan Cheese, hot red pepper and parsley). If you are looking for a good Italian cookbook easy follow with great recipes this is it. I have 60 cookbooks and this is one of my best.



3. My very first impression as I opened the book was that the lettering was too small and very light. When you're cooking and are referring to recipes as you go along, big, bold, dark print is a lot easier to the eye especially as one gets older.

   Just wondering why -- this point was not taken into consideration when the print was chosen. There was even a write-up on the special print that was used, though I found it to be inappropriate and rather impractical.

   Also, I was about to make her pot roast recipe -- why does Marcella require us to use "chopped,canned,imported,plum Italian tomatoes" -- all 1-1/2 tablespoons of it? Why so little? Is it really worth opening up a whole can for that little amount? Why not just use the plain fresh plum tomatoes then?

   Just wondering -- if it was a typo or incorrect, unedited material.

   So far that was the only recipe I've checked. Thanks for listening to my comment.




4. Working backward from Marcella Hazan's latest work, this book `Marcella's Italian Kitchen' is the third of Ms. Hazan's books I will be reviewing. Following Ms. Hazan's advice early in this book to pay very close attention to words and exactly what they say, I adduce (and confirm by a reading of many prefaces to the various recipes) that this book is less about traditional Italian recipes than it is about recipes collected by and prepared by Ms. Hazan in her own kitchen, personal or classroom, which are done in the Italian style. And, Ms. Hazan goes to very great lengths to define exactly what that Italian style is. She does this to a depth of detail which puts overshadows virtually all other popular American interpreters of Italian cuisine. That is not to say she disagrees with them. Part of my confidence in stating that Ms. Hazan is giving us the right stuff is based on my having read and heard the same themes from other respected authorities such as Mario Batali, Lydia Bastianich, and Nancy Harmon Jenkins. It means she both takes everything just one step further into the authentic soul of Italian cooking, and explains those steps in depth, leaving virtually nothing to the imagination or to an invocation of some sense of the spiritual as Ms. Grace Young does when she rhapsodizes over `wok hay' or `The Breath of the Wok' in a recent work.
   
   Be clear that Ms. Hazan's devotion to an authentically Italian style of cooking does lead her to hold strong positions that violate some conventional American wisdom on Italian cooking. Some of these positions are easy to understand for anyone who has watched two or three `Molto Mario' shows, such as the banishment of bread flavored with butter and garlic to the realm of the inauthentic sham posing as `garlic bread'. True Italian garlic bread or bruschetta is always oiled with olive oil and not butter. And, the authentic article is grilled. A more difficult precept is the banishing of French style stocks from the making of Italian soups. I have even seen a review of her later book, `Marcella Cucina', criticize her strongly for this position, in spite of the fact that Batali, Bastianich, and Bugialli all agree with Ms. Hazan. It is easy to make this mistake, as there are probably tens of thousands of recipes in America that innocently build a suppa or ministre with chicken stock from a can. In better books, the authors probably recommend these soups be made with homemade STOCKS based on a recipe straight from their favorite French cooking authority. An even more surprising statement is when Ms. Hazan admonishes us not to add Parmigiano Reggiano to sauces based on olive oil. Even I find this a little hard to take, unless on understands this to mean that you do not flavor the final dish with both fresh olive oil AND freshly grated cheese. She even disagrees with my hero Mario in professing to use prefer only fresh tomatoes in cooking, and canned tomatoes, even San Marzano tomatoes are second best. My verdict on all of this is to go back to the title and remind you, dear reader, that Ms. Hazan is teaching us her interpretation of true Italian kitchen practice. If you accept her on that basis, she is simply the best there is writing in English.
   
   If you are not happy with these constraints, consult the dozens of good books of recipes inspired by the Italian cuisine such as those from Lydia Bastianich, Jamie Oliver and Rogers and Gray of River Café.
   
   Focusing on the `Marcella' in the title be sure to understand that many of the recipes in this book are Ms. Hazan's inventions. What makes this so delightful is that her stories about how many of these dishes came about match exactly the analysis of Tom Colicchio in `How to Think Like a Chef' where he says that chefs do not conceive of a dish then go out to shop for the right ingredients. Exactly the opposite is true. Most original dishes arise when the cook is faced with a limited set of available ingredients. `Necessity is the mother of invention' was never truer than when it is applied to the cook in the kitchen. And, all the invention is done while remaining true to the principles of the Italian kitchen.
   
   Since Ms. Hazan how has five books on exactly the same subject, one can be concerned that one may be better than the others. Pending my review of her earliest books, I will say that there is some repetition of introductory information across volumes and some duplication of descriptions of basic techniques such as the making of fresh pasta, but there is no duplication of recipes. And, not only is there no overlap of recipes, each book presents the material in a somewhat different way, making the encounter that much more interesting. I will say that the lessons on fresh pasta making are a bit better in `Marcella Cucina' than they are in the present volume, as the newer book adds very good pictures to the text to guide the student. Also, the discussion of the foundations of Italian technique including the notion of `insaporire' is better in `Marcella Says' than in the current book. Yet, this volume contains many pages of general information and advice that is in neither of the other books I have reviewed.
   
   Like her other books, recipes for pasta dishes are the stars, outnumbering all other recipes. Unlike `Marcella Cucina' where the pasta recipes were all about the sauces, the current volume matches the sauce to the pasta, giving the reader the whole dish. The very best things about the recipes are that they are spelled out in great detail, making them simple for even a novice. As Ms. Hazan does in every book, be warned that simple is not easy, but she takes you by the hand through each step.
   
   Highly recommended.



5. This cookbook is one of the 3 or 4 (of my two dozen or so) cookbooks that I keep out on the counter and keep going back to. It has an excellent variety of recipes, from simple ones with on-hand ingredients for every day to more complex, involved ones for something special.
   
   One of the things I like best is Marcella's very precise instructions - she tells you how high to turn up the heat and for how long, how thinly to slice the garlic, etc. and she does so in a way that is very sensual and appealing to the smells and feels of the food. I also like her descriptions of the recipe and how it came to be...
   
   for example, in her intro to the recipe for Fricasseed Chicken with Black Olives (a favorite), she talks about how her son invented it one night after seeing what was on hand, said "now all I need is a chicken" and how it reflects a young man's penchant for bold, strong flavors (black olives, vinegar, lemon).
   
   Other favorites include simple tomato sauce, penne with mushrooms, and her tortas.
   
   In summary, I have not had a bad meal from this cookbook!!

5 comments about The Tra Vigne Cookbook: Seasons in the California Wine Country.

1. I have had this book for over a year and have tried several of his recipes which all comes out great. It is one of the few cookboos that I have which I use often. The recipes are easy to follow, simple, and most important of all, delicious. I espcially like the stuffed pepper recipe. It is also a book one can sit down to read for leisure. Plus there are lots of tips, not just recipes.



2. This is a wonderful culinary book. It's more than a cookbook, as it focuses on various vegetables, etc. of the season, then uses those featured ingredients in several great recipes. If you've ever eaten at Tra Vigne in the Napa Valley town of St. Helena, you can even picture in your mind Michael in the kitchen, and almost taste the restaurant's just-pressed olive oil. If you know anyone who likes to read culinary books (like my mom, who literally reads cookbooks cover to cover, then goes back to earmark certain recipes), you should give them this book for the holidays. It is a beautiful, coffee table-quality, glossy work.



3. As an individual who is dedicated to eating local, healthy, and tasty food, Michael Chiarello once again creates supreme recipes with delicious flavor and divides the cookbook by season. Each of the recipes has a bit of flare and contain simple and fresh ingredients that should be easily found in any local grocery store, farmers market, or organic store such as Whole Foods, Wild Oats, or Fresh Market. My cooking style is still developing, but all of these recipes are always winners even for the novice cook. The recipes are easy to make and always satisfy. This is a definite recommend for anyone looking for tasty, seasonal cooking.



4. I collect cookbooks. I like this book because the recipes are original and the ingredients aren't too esoteric. I don't like the coffee table size, it's too hard to browse through. I recommend if you are an experienced cook and always searching for new, interesting recipes.



5. We bought this on Amazon after eating in Napa, and are very pleased with the recipes. The recipes are not overly intimidating for a casual weekday meal. In contrast, the Mustards' Grill cookbook gives a number of more advanced recipes, with complex ingredients. This cookbook avoids the need for ingredients from a high, high end grocery store. We were so pleased with this cookbook we checked out another from the same chef (casual cooking), and ended up purchasing this book as well. If you have fresh ingredients available, this is a nice cookbook for a dinner party or a weekday meal. Overall, very pleased with this cookbook.

5 comments about Marcella Says...: Italian Cooking Wisdom from the Legendary Teacher's Master Classes, with 120 of Her Irresistible New Recipes.

1. I made my first recipe from this book. Fresh Tuna and Zucchini Pasta Sauce. It called for quick sauteeing the tuna in hot olive oil, removing the tuna and then adding 1/4 cup of wine. When I did exactly that, the splattering all over the range, exhaust, floor was unbelievable. Surely the author or Susan Friedland the editor should have known better than to recommend this procedure.
   I am now afraid to try anything else.



2. The first 90 pages or so are filled with good information that make the purchase worthwhile. The remainder feels like it was put together in a hurry.
   
   Listed in the middle of the ingredients list is the equipment you'll need. That's a bit clumsy and awkward.
   
   The photos (none are of dishes, all are of Marcella either alone or with her classes) are fuzzy. None serve any purpose, and in a few, such as the one on page 161, she does not look like she is in good health.
   
   As for the recipes they are a bit of a disappointment, the homemade pasta and gnocchi chapter, for example, offers just one gnocchi recipe with no additional instructions for making a quality gnocchi. More attention is given to making bread crumbs than what makes for a good gnocchi.
   
   This book was a good idea, but after page 90 it is poorly executed.



3. Not her best book, but egads! It's Marcella. Nearly on the same plane as Julia! Some wonderful recipes here.
   
   Sounds like Mr. Newman is kinda green if he can't handle simple de-glazing. For him, I suggest The Joy of Cooking.



4. I made the puree of fava beans with rapini. The recipe said simmer 1 lb rapini in 4c water. I think she meant 4 quarts. Same night, lamb shanks with savoy cabbage. "Cook the shanks about one hour or until meat falling off bones" and "serve immediately". (paraphrasing). The braising took over two hours, and tasted better the next day. When I make it again (and I will), I'll cook it a day ahead and reheat.
   
   On the other hand, both were excellent and excellent together. I'm just going to trust my instincts about off-sounding details.



5. This Summer, for my family I made Marcella's recipe for Sicilian Pesto from this book. I followed the recipe to the letter, and my family was blown away. It was so delicious, so nuanced, and surprising (you think, pesto, I know pesto. well guess again). Can't wait to try more of these recipes and have everyone think I'm a genius.

5 comments about Italian Easy: Recipes from the London River Cafe.

1. 'Italian Easy' authors Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers are two English chefs who seem to carry a lot of weight in the community of writers on Italian Cuisine. They are one of the first employers of Jamie Oliver and were, I suspect, a strong influence on his style and choice of cuisine. In spite of Oliver's great celebrity, Gray and Roger owe nothing to this. Their reputation is firmly based on doing good Italian food before Jamie came to the limelight. Mario Batali also offers their books as one of his favorite reads for Italian recipes.

   Creating food that is both easy to prepare and sophisticated in taste and presentation always seems to me to be a chimera. An attempt to put together two things which are simply incompatible. I think Rogers and Gray have succeeded as well as anyone who has put their mind to this task. In their favor is the great pantry available to an Italian cook. Sometimes I think that if you put Parmesano Reggiano, fresh Tuscan olive oil, capers from Panteloria, sliced garlic, and basil from Genoa on shoe leather, it would taste good. It you replace shoe leather with artisinal bread, pasta, shellfish, spinach, or chicken and add tomatoes and anchovies, you basically have the recipes in this book. This is certainly an exaggeration, but not much. I am truly impressed by how simple and easy many of the recipes in this book appear on the page. Like a lot of simple recipes in Patricia Wells' new book 'The Provence Cookbook', they make you wonder how something so simple can taste good. I tried recipes in both books and I can attest that even a simple combination of pasta, broccoli, olive oil, garlic, and pancetta which comes together within 20 minutes, can be really impressive, especially as a dish which gives one both a starch and a vegetable.

   The same surprisingly short list of ingredients is the norm for most of the recipes. This is not to say there is no variety in the recipes. Just the opposite is true. In the short chapter on ricotta recipes, there are two different Italian specialities based on similar short ingredient lists that are totally unfamiliar to me. The first is 'Gnudi' that may be loosely described as a ricotta gnocchi. There are two recipes, one plain or 'Bianchi' and the other with spinach. The second type of recipe is a ricotta gratin named 'Sformata di ricotta'. The very best aspect of this and many other of these recipes is that it calls for cherry tomatoes which succeed in being reasonably tasty even if they are grown in a hothouse out of season. Another example of a successful mix of novelty and diversity is the chapter of nine potato recipes. Two of the nine are gnocchi, so there is nothing new there, and one is mashed potatoes with nutmeg and parmesan, so there is nothing dramatic there. But the other six recipes make dramatic combinations of potato with fennel, mustard, pumpkin, lemon, and tomato sauce.

   Speaking of tomato sauce, the book's pantry 'quick tomato sauce' is really quick with four ingredients and about 20 minutes of cooking time for an experienced cook. Compare this to Mario Batali's basic sauce which I find difficult to prep and cook in less than an hour (but then, I'm not the fastest knife in the kitchen).

   Even dishes which may appear to have involved or difficult recipes such as potato gnocchi or risotto appear simple in Rogers and Gray's words. I think this is a symptom that these recipes are not as daunting as they may seem to the newbie, but it is also a symptom of the fact that Rogers and Gray are writing to people who have some experience in the kitchen. The dozens of helpful little hints you typically get on the 'Molto Mario' show about the technique for heating garlic in oil, for example, are simply not there. There are no tips on peeling fava beans or even a hint that fava beans are naturally double wrapped. There is no babble about terroir or commentary on how the recipes were found or invented. Unlike the 8 year old 'Italian Country Cookbook' there is no consistent use of Italian recipe names with English translations taking a second line role. While many recipes such as potato gnocchi are Italian classics, many others are either highly streamlined versions of Italian classics or they are River Caf? inventions with Italian ingredients and techniques.

   I really like the many chapters with only a few recipes in some chapters, making it easier than usual to find the nine recipes based on potatoes or the three risotto recipes or the nine truly simple spaghetti recipes. The Brits must be as fond of spaghetti as we colonists. I really dislike the artsy presentation of the dozen bruschetta food photos on one page opposed to the corresponding dozen recipes on the following pages. What WERE these people thinking? Luckily, this nuttiness plays itself out by the time we get to the third chapter, carpaccio and we return to the sanity of recipe and photo on facing pages.

   This is the first River Caf? cookbook I have reviewed, and I regret my having overlooked them up to now. The authors have truly succeeded in giving straightforward recipes, easy to prepare with readily available (but not necessarily cheap) ingredients.

   Very highly recommended, especially if you have any taste for Italian food and need fast recipes. Also highly recommended if you like Jamie Oliver's style of food. This book is no nonsense good, easy cooking, as long as you have good basic kitchen skills.




2. You get the usual top quality presentations. Preparation is really easy! Triggers your own ideas.



3. I cannot believe that only two people have reviewed this book! It is by far one of the best books I own, and I have quite a collection. It is better than anything Giada DeLaurentis has done, simpler than Mario Batali, and as much as I love Jamie Oliver, is better than his new Italian cookbook as well. The book is simply beautiful. The layout and the photography make everything look irresistible. Even more importantly, everything I have made from here has been exceptionally good. The bruschetta ideas are inspiring. Almost everything in here is so simple, you wonder, why didn't I think of that? And yet the simplicity is deceiving as the outcome is beyond delicious. The pea and scallion pasta with prosciutto is insane. The sea bass with potatoes divine. The veggie dishes are so good I recommend this book to vegetarians despite the fact that it is not a veggie cookbook. If you buy one Italian cookbook, this is the one....



4. This cookbook is set up in a very unique which sets it apart from others in this genre. The dishes are rustic yet sophisticated; definitely a nice fixture for a beginner but also for a seasoned cook looking for some inspiration.



5. Great italian recipes. Ingredients wonderfully spelled out,easy directions and beautiful pictures.Presented in such a way that you will want to cook Italian every night!!

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