Secondly, the book is a long overdue portrait of the real Mario Batali and of the real Marco Pierre White--two complicated and brilliant chefs whose coverage in the press--while appropriately fawning--has never described them in their fully debauched, delightful glory. Buford has--for the first time--managed to explain White's peculiar--almost freakish brilliance--while humanizing a man known for terrorizing cooks, customers (and Batali). As for Mario--he is finally revealed for the Falstaffian, larger than life, mercurial, frighteningly intelligent chef/enterpreneur he really is. No small accomplishment. Other cooks, chefs, butchers, artisans and restaurant lifers are described with similar insight.
Thirdly, Heat reveals a dead-on understanding--rare among non-chef writers--of the pleasures of "making" food; the real human cost, the real requirements and the real adrenelin-rush-inducing pleasures of cranking out hundreds of high quality meals. One is left with a truly unique appreciation of not only what is truly good about food--but as importantly, who cooks--and why. I can't think of another book which takes such an unsparing, uncompromising and ultimately thrilling look at the quest for culinary excellence. Heat brims with fascinating observations on cooking, incredible characters, useful discourse and argument-ending arcania. I read my copy and immediately started reading it again. It's going right in between Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London and Zola's The Belly of Paris on my bookshelf. --Anthony Bourdain
Book Description
Bill Buford—author of the highly acclaimed best-selling Among the Thugs—had long thought of himself as a reasonably comfortable cook when in 2002 he finally decided to answer a question that had nagged him every time he prepared a meal: What kind of cook could he be if he worked in a professional kitchen? When the opportunity arose to train in the kitchen of Mario Batali’s three-star New York restaurant, Babbo, Buford grabbed it. Heat is the chronicle—sharp, funny, wonderfully exuberant—of his time spent as Batali’s “slave” and of his far-flung apprenticeships with culinary masters in Italy.
In a fast-paced, candid narrative, Buford describes the frenetic experience of working in Babbo’s kitchen: the trials and errors (and more errors), humiliations and hopes, disappointments and triumphs as he worked his way up the ladder from slave to cook. He talks about his relationships with his kitchen colleagues and with the larger-than-life, hard-living Batali, whose story he learns as their friendship grows through (and sometimes despite) kitchen encounters and after-work all-nighters.
Buford takes us to the restaurant in a remote Appennine village where Batali first apprenticed in Italy and where Buford learns the intricacies of handmade pasta . . . the hill town in Chianti where he is tutored in the art of butchery by Italy’s most famous butcher, a man who insists that his meat is an expression of the Italian soul . . . to London, where he is instructed in the preparation of game by Marco Pierre White, one of England’s most celebrated (or perhaps notorious) chefs. And throughout, we follow the thread of Buford’s fascinating reflections on food as a bearer of culture, on the history and development of a few special dishes (Is the shape of tortellini really based on a woman’s navel? And just what is a short rib?), and on the what and why of the foods we eat today.
Heat is a marvelous hybrid: a richly evocative memoir of Buford’s kitchen adventure, the story of Batali’s amazing rise to culinary (and extra-culinary) fame, a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a famous restaurant, and an illuminating exploration of why food matters.
It is a book to delight in—and to savor.
Customer Reviews:
Fun, fun fun in the bowels of the kitchen.......2007-10-12
I read Bourdain's book and loved it. I also liked this one. Raw, honest talk from someone who has been there.
The autobiography part was fascinating (can such characters really populate elite restaurants!?) and the lowdown on furiously making food night after night was priceless. The last section was too blah blah about Mario Batali, although the scenes of Italy were intriguing. A must read for real food lovers.
A humorous read that made me hungry!.......2007-10-07
Who wouldn't want to go on Buford's journey? He's a great tour guide on his gasto-tour of the kitchens of the Mario Batali and Pierre Marco White. He shows that kitchens can be places that are filled with potential dangers and loads of passion. It took me awhile to get through this book, in part because I kept getting hungry and had to go make something to eat! I'm ready to go clamp the pasta machine to the counter and whip up some fresh pasta.
It's a pretty dense book to get through, and the author wanders away from the main story often. Most of the time, it's to an interesting place, but sometimes, it's just a tangent. But aside from a few of those as a distraction, I thought this was a great book.
Interesting but not what I thought it was going to be.......2007-09-19
I got this book because my husband heard an interview on the radio and thought I would like it since I love to cook. It was interesting but spent too much time, for me, on the politics of working in a restaurant kitchen and not enough on the workings of food in a restaurant. I bored with the personalities and gave up trying to figure out who was who.
I think I made the pages soggy..........2007-09-17
This guy, Bill Buford, is pretty amazing. Despite the danger of slicing off his hands entirely (an accident that he somehow manages to repeat) under various huge, sharp, professional knives, he insisted going (back again and again) to Italy to learn about things so obscure even professional chefs wouldn't have much idea about.
If you're looking for a book about Batali, this isn't the most comprehensive one, but it's scathingly honest and if you really live and breathe food, you'll gain a whole lot more than goss about the inner workings of Batali's businesses. It gets a bit soppy at times - a bit too "Tuscany is beautiful, and Provence is the ultimate foodie heaven", but only fleetingly, and all can be forgiven once you read about the author's hilarious effort to cook a whole pig...
ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......2007-09-11
The chapters on Mario Batali and the dynamics of his kitchen were really interesting and engaging. I was intrigud by the sections on Marco Pierre White as I had just read Gordon Ramsey's autobiography in which his tempestuous relationship with White plays a significant role. The rest of Buford's book is just too tediously, self-indulgently written to the point where it killed my interest in the underlying subjects of pasta making and butchery (I ended up skimming page after page as I just couldn't take it). It reminded me of a computer spitting forth every bit of information in its memory regardless of relevance or interest. Just too many tedious, boorish details.
Average customer rating:
- A really nice book - some of the criticisms are off.
- A culinary masterpiece
- Excellent, Italian Betty Crocker on Speed,Extrememly comprehensive ... but...
- Great collection - a few quibbles
- Easy to use, even for dieters!
|
The Silver Spoon
Phaidon Press
Manufacturer: Phaidon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 History
| Gastronomy
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
Reference
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
Italian
| European
| Regional & International
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange: The Original Companion for French Home Cooking
-
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (Vintage)
-
The Year of Magical Thinking
-
The Best Recipes in the World
-
My Life in France
ASIN: 0714845310 |
Amazon.com
First published in 1950 and revised over time, Italy's bestselling culinary "bible," Il Cucchiaio d'argento, is now available in English. The Silver Spoon boasts over 2,000 recipes and arrives in a handsome (and weighty) photo-illustrated edition complete with two ribbon markers. Its chapters make every menu stop from sauces and antipasti through cheese dishes and sweets, with many standout dishes like Genoese Pesto Minestrone, Eggplant and Ricotta Lasagna, Pork Shoulder with Prunes, and Chocolate and Pear Tart; the book also includes a number of "eccentricities," like sections on patty shells and bean sprouts, surely not an Italian dining staple. Meant to be inclusive, the book also offers a wide range of non-Italian, mostly French formulas, supplemented by a few "exotic" and other non-traditional entries.
Though the recipe range is vast, it must be said that American readers, anxious to cook this authentic fare, will encounter problems. Translating a cookbook from one language to another requires cultural recasting as well as word substitution, and in this the book's editors have been lax. The problems include non-idiomatic usages, for example, calling for "pans" when "pots" is needed; awkward conversions from the metric system, resulting in requirements like eleven ounces of zite; and the inclusion of ingredients like cavolo nero (Tuscan cabbage), tope (a Mediterranean fish), and pancetta copatta (ham-stuffed pancetta) that are unavailable here and for which no alternatives are suggested. In addition, the recipes themselves are often insufficiently specific or detailed--even seasoned bakers will pause before cake recipes that don't specify pan size--and can also lack yields. Space considerations have also meant printing recipes in single, one-column paragraphs, which can make place-finding while cooking difficult, and there are typos and other goofs (one recipe for four specifies six cups of sliced scallions; another requires that a marinade be "stirred frequently for five to twelve hours").
All this said, many cooks--casual and serious alike--as well as cookbook collectors, will want The Silver Spoon. It's an essential document of the Italian table and as such a classic. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a complete cookbook library without the book--a welcome evocation of a much-beloved repertoire by those who know it best. --Arthur Boehm
Book Description
First published in 1950 and revised over time, Italy's bestselling culinary "bible," Il Cucchiaio d'argento, is now available in English. The Silver Spoon boasts over 2,000 recipes and arrives in a handsome (and weighty) photo-illustrated edition complete with two ribbon markers. Its chapters make every menu stop from sauces and antipasti through cheese dishes and sweets, with many standout dishes like Genoese Pesto Minestrone, Eggplant and Ricotta Lasagna, Pork Shoulder with Prunes, and Chocolate and Pear Tart; the book also includes a number of "eccentricities," likesections on patty shells and bean sprouts, surely not an Italian dining staple.Meant to be inclusive, the book also offers a wide range of non-Italian, mostly French formulas, supplemented by a few "exotic" and other non-traditional entries.Though the recipe range is vast, it must be said that American readers, anxious to cook this authentic fare, will encounter problems. Translating a cookbook from one language to another requires cultural recasting as well as word substitution, and in this the book's editors have been lax. The problems include non-idiomatic usages, for example, calling for "pans" when "pots" is needed; awkward conversions from the metric system, resulting in requirements like eleven ounces of zite; and the inclusion of ingredients like cavolo nero (Tuscan cabbage), tope (a Mediterranean fish), andpancetta copatta (ham-stuffed pancetta) that are unavailable here and for which no alternatives are suggested. In addition, the recipes themselves are often insufficiently specific or detailed--even seasoned bakers will pause before cake recipes that don't specify pan size--and can also lack yields. Space considerations have also meant printing recipes in single, one-column paragraphs, which can make place-finding while cooking difficult, and there are typos and other goofs (one recipe for four specifies six cups of sliced scallions; another requires that a marinade be "stirred frequently for five to twelve hours").All this said, many cooks--casual and serious alike--as well as cookbook collectors, will want The Silver Spoon. It's an essential document of the Italian table and as such a classic. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a complete cookbook library without the book--a welcome evocation of a much-beloved repertoire by those who know it best. --Arthur Boehm
Customer Reviews:
A really nice book - some of the criticisms are off........2007-10-10
A few people criticized the book in earlier reviews for not providing enough detailed information about how to cook certain recipes. I wanted to point out that this was probably a cultural difference, one that Americans should just get used to if they really want to understand Italian cooking. To show that it really is a cultural difference, i point to two pieces of evidence.
(1) The book itself discusses how they had to increase detail in recipe-presentation for American tastes. That said, you shouldn't complain that its too vague - because this is just how Italians do recipes. (Chances are, they allow for a lot more variation in the outcome than Americans do, btw... if you watch Mario Batali, he notes that every Italian mother has her own version of each dish). The extreme specification of every last detail is a desire of American home cooks.
(2) If you look at the recipes by famous chefs at the end of the book, you'll notice a really funny difference. All of the chefs who are FROM ITALY provide directions for recipes that take up only 1/2 a page each. All of the chefs who are NOT FROM ITALY provide directions for recipes that take up the whole page. (The ones from the U.S. - Lidia Bastianich and Mario Batali are the best examples of this). This should be a good sign to everyone that it's a cultural difference that you should try and co-opt rather than reject, if you're trying to understand Italian cooking as a whole.
A culinary masterpiece.......2007-08-28
This book is a treasure trove of delicious treats. The overwhelming number of recipes is countered by an efficient cataloging system, making it simple to find precisely what you wanted. The addition of famous chefs' sample menus is an added bonus that makes this book truly unique. I highly recommend The Silver Spoon to anyone who wants to explore the delights of the kitchen: from novice to pro, this book takes the cake.
Excellent, Italian Betty Crocker on Speed,Extrememly comprehensive ... but..........2007-07-18
Great book, really excellent recipes applicable to the beginner up to advanced cooks. However, the book really doesnt describe techniques for preparing the food which are really needed in the american market. As an example there are several recipes for squid and cuttlefish but no cleaning techniques which can complicated. I highly reccomend this book as a standard part of your cooking library, it is truly a goldmine of recipes, sort of an Italian Betty Crocker cookbook on speed.
Great collection - a few quibbles.......2007-07-01
This is a mammoth collection and many recipes sound terrific. A few problems, though.
What REGION claims the recipe? Italians are tied to their family regions. This information belongs in the recipes.
AMERICAN VERSION OF ITALIAN INGREDIENTS. What type chilies or lettuce, for example, would make the recipes as close to authentic as possible?
PICTURES. There are beautiful pictures of prepared recipes. There are no captions for the pictures, and sometimes, the reader can't guess which recipe on the facing page is pictured.
I'm enjoying using and reading this book, but I wish the publishers had done a little more editing for the U. S. market.
Easy to use, even for dieters!.......2007-06-16
Needless to say, I LOVE Italian food. When I went on the SouthBeach Diet, I was terrified - a limitation on carbs meant no more pasta! However, this book provides SO MUCH outside the range of normal pastas that I can still enjoy great Italian food without compromising my diet. A definite winner!
Amazon.com
Sure to excite lovers of the best Italian cooking, Mario Batali Simple Italian Food: Recipes from My Two Villages reenvisions classic home cucina with enticing results. Batali, known to fans as "Molto Mario" from his Television Food Network shows, and as chef-owner of Manhattan's much-loved Po and Babbo restaurants, presents nearly 250 of his favorite recipes, traditional and innovative, for delectable salads, pastas, grilled specialties, ragus, and desserts, among others. The collection, inspired by the cooking of Borgo Cappene, a hillside village in northern Italy, and Greenwich Village, where Batali culls exemplary ingredients for his restaurants, reflects Batali's commitment to simple cooking--impeccable ingredients sensibly combined and properly prepared. Cooks seeking deeply flavored, smartly presented dishes will embrace Batali's recipes for everyday meals and for entertaining.
Arranged by courses, antipasti through formaggi and dolci (cheese and sweets), the uncomplicated dishes include White Bean Bruschetta with Grilled Radicchio Salad, Baked Lasagna with Asparagus and Pesto, and Roasted Porgy with Peas, Garlic, Scallions and Mint. Gorgonzola with Spiced Walnuts and Port Wine Syrup with fresh fruit would make a lovely conclusion to any dinner. Throughout, Batali provides advice on dish preparation; there are 32 pages of color photos and dozens of black-and-white shots of life in Batali's two villages. Batali's reliance on the best ingredients simply prepared, rather than on fussy restaurant techniques, places his dishes squarely in the realm of home cooks. They'll find his book a keeper. --Arthur Boehm
Book Description
Perfectly pristine ingredients, combined sensibly and cooked properly, are the unmistakable hallmarks of the best Italian food. Chef Mario Batali, known to fans far and wide as "Molto Mario" from his appearances on television's Food Network and as chef of New York's much-loved Pó restaurant, has elevated these simple principles to fine art, creating innovative new fare that pays tribute to traditional Italian home cooking in a distinctly modern way. Now, for the first time, more than 200 of his irresistible recipes for fresh pastas, sprightly salads, grilled dishes, savory ragus, and many others are gathered in
Simple Italian Food, a celebration of the flavors and spirit of Italy.
Mario draws inspiration for his distinctive dishes from the two "villages" that have left their stamps on his cuisine: Borgo Capanne, the tiny hillside village in Northern Italy where he lived and cooked for several years, and New York's Greenwich Village, where he has ready access to bountiful produce and outstanding artisan-made products; his full-flavored, smartly presented fare combines the best of both worlds. Chapters covering antipasti, pasta and risotto, fish, meat and poultry, contorni (side dishes), and cheese and sweets offer classic dishes such as Baked Lasagne with Asparagus and Pesto and pork loin cooked in caramelized onions and milk alongside Batali's own enticing improvisations--Penne with Spicy Goat Cheese and Hazelnut Pesto or Tuna Carpaccio with Cucumbers, Sweet Potatoes, and Saffron Vinaigrette. And because his recipes succeed on the strength of their ingredients rather than on virtuoso techniques, home cooks can easily duplicate the clear, clean flavors and lively presentations that are Mario's signature. Thirty-two pages of color photographs showcase Chef Batali's colorful and approachable recipes.
Traditionalists as well as those who thrill to the new will want to make dozens of these crowd-pleasing dishes a permanent part of their repertoire and embrace Mario Batali'sphilosophy of
Simple Italian Food.
Customer Reviews:
great book.......2007-04-05
excellent cook book for beginners or pros...love it and love shopping on amazon
Impossible Cookbook.......2006-12-10
Mario Batali's cookbook is most disappointing. I looked it over carefully, and I found absolutely nothing of interest to me. His recipes are incredibly complicated, with ingredients available only in restaurants and the households of professional cooks, northern Italian ones at that. There had to be standby pestos, tapenades, sauces and vinaigrettes. Impossible, really. This is a most unattractive cook book. I won't even give it away.
One of my favorite cookbooks.......2006-04-12
Batali's "Simple Italian Food" is an excellent cookbook for people who actually like to cook, and for those who accept that Italian cooking covers a vast range of subjects and styles, far more than just pasta.
The title is apt: none of these dishes are overly complicated for anyone with a decently equipped kitchen and access to good, fresh ingredients. Unlike more complex styles, French cuisine for example, there is very little combining of several different cooking techniques to produce one recipe. At it's most complicated, the book calls for use of staple ingredients that can be prepared ahead of time, and which Batali also provides recipes for, with sauces for example.
One of the great pleasures of the book is discovering the unexpected tang and heartiness of his dishes. His pasta con vongole is a good example: the recipe calls for pancetta, and the result is a tangy clam sauce in a beautiful, brownish broth which is delicious and hearty without being overly rich. Comprate, cucinate e buon appetito!
Simple recipes not simple ingredients.......2005-03-24
Seems like many great recipes, but many ingredients that aren't found in the regular supermarket, especially if you live in a rural area like I do...so I haven't been able to try many of them.
Great recipes, awful binding.......2005-03-04
I've reviewed this cookbook before from the point of view of the contents, for which I gave it 5 stars. I use this cookbook all the time and absolutely love it. Unfortunately, I use this cookbook all the time and the cheap glued binding has not held up. About half the pages have detached and I'm a few chapters away from having to pull the whole thing apart and put it in a three-ring binder. Interestingly, the same publisher used a sewn binding for the Babbo Cookbook, so I guess the gourmet recipes get the quality treatment. I would still recommend purchasing the cookbook for the wonderful preparations, but shame on the publisher for using such poor components on a book designed to be repeatedly opened and laid flat.
Amazon.com
In Glorious French Food, James Peterson argues that once you understand a recipe's "logic and context," and the techniques required to follow it, you actually have something much more valuable than the recipe itself--you have the knowledge to create variations, make simplifications, and cook with spontaneity. Although French cuisine is often accused of being fussy and time-consuming, Peterson's clear instructions demystify many traditionally finicky recipes, and in the process, teach us how to cook anything.
The hundreds of recipes presented here are a pleasure to peruse; kitchen novices can work their way through this hefty volume and come out the other end accomplished cooks. Peterson details necessary equipment, techniques, and ingredients for each recipe so that by the time you start making it, you're fearless. Some of his dishes are remarkably simple, like the beautifully fresh, ready-in-minutes Shaved Fennel Salad, or the richly aromatic French Onion Soup. Others are more complicated, but all teach a lesson: In the Roast Chicken chapter, learn to roast without a thermometer, truss without a needle, make gravy, and then succeed at Roast Chicken Stuffed Under the Skin with Spinach and Ricotta. Learn to make pasta dough, and then re-present leftover Provençal Lamb Stew (if there's any of this heavenly, melt-in-your-mouth tender, orange-scented stew left) as Meat-Filled Ravioli. Perfect for fans of French cuisine, this is also a remarkably handy reference guide for any kitchen. --Leora Y. Bloom
Book Description
From the James Beard award--winning author of Sauces-a new classic on French cuisine for today's cook
His award-winning books have won the praise of The New York Times and Gourmet magazine as well as such culinary luminaries as chefs Daniel Boulud, Jeremiah Tower, and Alice Waters. Now James Peterson brings his tremendous stores of culinary knowledge, energy, and imagination to this fresh and inspiring look at the classic dishes of French cuisine. With a refreshing, broadminded approach that embraces different French cooking styles-from fine dining to bistro-style cooking, from hearty regional fare to nouvelle cuisine-Peterson uses fifty "foundation" French dishes as the springboard to preparing a variety of related dishes. In his inventive hands, the classic Moules à la marinière inspires the delightful Miniature Servings of Mussels with Sea Urchin Sauce and Mussel Soup with Garlic Puree and Saffron, while the timeless Duck à l'orange gives rise to the subtle Salad of Sautéed or Grilled Duck Breasts and Sautéed Duck Breasts with Classic Orange Sauce. Through these recipes, Peterson reveals the underlying principles and connections in French cooking that liberate readers to devise and prepare new dishes on their own. With hundreds recipes and dazzling color photography throughout, Glorious French Food gives everyone who enjoys cooking access to essential French cooking traditions and techniques and helps them give free reign to the intuition and spontaneity that lie in the heart-and stomach-of every good cook. It will take its place on the shelf right next to Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Customer Reviews:
If you can only own one French cookbook, this may be it.......2007-09-29
French cuisine, despite predictions of its demise by food writers admist inroads of other Western cuisines including Italian and Spanish cuisines, is still going strong. Many people will, have heard classic/haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine, bourgeois/bistro cuisine, and regional cuisine that form the four important strands of French cuisine, and this book has touched on all four of these cuisines.
One important difference between this book and others is it uses 50 dishes as the starting point and teach 4 to 10 more dishes that share either the principal ingredients or are related by techniques. It is, as Peterson himself mentions in the preface, aiming to teach you to how to cook on your own and understanding cooking is not just a mechanical follow-one-recipe process: it is a little like how you learned mathematics in electrical engineering and apply the central methodology into diverse areas like power load flow analysis, calculating a circuit's small signal behaviours, using signal processing in protection relays.
Bear in mind that this book is geared towards big city or middle-sized suburban-area American homes. Duck a l'orange, for instance, is in the American adaptation version. This makes the book a little tricky to be used if you live in Auckland, Sydney, or in London, where the ingredients available will likely be different from what's available in US. For those armchair chefs who want to buy a book that tells how French food is actually prepared in France itself, another book, such as the Konemann publications, will likely be more useful.
By all means this book is not meant to be an exhaustive coverage of France's cookery. , but most books on French cooking tend to cover very small specialized subject areas (Provence's bistros) or are just a thin compendium of recipes (eg 100 recipe in a 200 page cookbook showcased as "Cuisine of France"). If you are interested to build a library of French cookbooks, I recommend the more exhaustive publications of Jacques Pepin, Alain Ducasse's Grand Livre de Cuisine (currently with 2 titles in English, but there are a few more published in the original French), and the ever reliable Larousse Gastronomique, in addition to this book. Otherwise for a tight bookshelf, this book on its own may be what you want for French cooking.
Almost perfect for me. .......2007-01-09
I am a big fan of his books after receiving copies of Sauce and Splendid Soups. He brings a fresh approach to the subject and it is written in a style more suited to my learning. I have always been slighly intimidated with the Classic side of French cooking. I hope by the end of the book I will be better aquainted, better versed and better versed.
Bon Appititte.
Glorious French Food.......2005-10-18
I absolutely love this cookbook. As a culinary student, I wish they had issued this book out instead of my $150 doller culinary workbook. This book is such a wealth of information. "Glorious French Food" is big, but Peterson's writing is so interesting and entertaining that I've taken it to the beach with me many times. I've always felt dishes are tastier when one learns the history behind the creations. As for the recipes, they are excellent. I test them on my boyfriend, who by chance is French and a culinary graduate. He feels the recipes are very accurate and will sometimes admit that some of them are better then his family's dishes. I highly recommond this book, for both fun and serious cooks out there. It's a great gift to give.
A very Novel Cookbook. Buy it to read!!!.......2005-09-07
`Glorious French Food' by leading culinary educator, James Peterson may be a true lost classic, in the cookbook world similar to `The Thirteenth Warrior' in the movies or the novels of Thomas Berger, including `Little Big Man'. I noticed a copy on the bargain stacks a few days ago and immediately felt regret for not having done a review of it to help, in some very small way to raise the reputation of this excellent culinary pedagogical text.
I have a very `love / hate' relationship with James Peterson's books. Peterson has a very well deserved reputation as the author of the classic reference, `Sauces', now in a second edition (rare for cookbooks) and his Jacques Pepin homage, `Essentials of Cooking' (for those of you who need your culinary show and tell in full color). He has also done several excellent texts on special subjects such as Vegetables, Salmon, Duck, and Soups. I have reviewed each and every one of these books favorably, yet my experience when doing specific Peterson recipes (except those in `Sauces') is mixed. I am not entirely surprised at this, as I sometimes find his individual recipe descriptions just a bit mixed up, as if his copy editor was taking a coffee break as they were editing that recipe.
Peterson may in this book offer a great explanation for this paradox. He says that his greatest ambition would be to write a cookbook with no recipes. This is not as easy as it sounds, since I reviewed Pam Anderson's book `How to Cook Without a Book' and I found it wanting in several regards. Peterson also says that his greatest compliment is when a reader says they made one of his recipes, but changed it a bit, and it came out very well. All this means is that Peterson is a relatively unconventional cookbook author who is best approached differently than you may approach `The Joy of Cooking' or `Mastering the Art of French Cooking'.
This book, even for its great size (almost 750 pages) is, like Madeleine Kamman's `The New Making of a Cook', a book meant to be read from front to back in an easy chair with no electronic distractions nearby. The first and most important reason for reading this book like a novel is its novel organization. Instead of chapters on Salads, Soups and Stocks, Meat, Poultry, Starches, Vegetables, and Desserts, there are a very neat 50 chapters on fifty of the most famous dishes from the French culinary canon. As you may guess from the size of the book, there is a lot more here than 50 recipes which, with a typical treatment, may take not much more than 100 pages to dispatch. Rather, most of the chapters are really about a family of dishes.
The very first chapter takes twelve (12) pages to cover `Assorted Vegetable Salads', all falling under the rubric of the French word, `Crudites' which, roughly translated, means raw vegetables. In this chapter are nine (9) dish recipes for Celeriac Remoulade, Grated Carrots, Red Cabbage Salad, Cold Cucumbers, Marinated Mushrooms, Baby Artichokes with Walnuts, Shaved Fennel Salad, Tomato Salad, and Parisian-Style Potato Salad. There are also two `pantry' recipes for Basic Mayonnaise and Crème Fraiche. Like the very liberal Chris Schlesinger (`The Thrill of the Grill', `How to Cook Meat', etc) and unlike the very traditional Madeleine Kamman, Peterson is extremely liberating with his advice. He tells us how to improvise crème fraiche and he tells us all the reasons why some substitutes, such as American sour cream, will just not work as well in some recipes. He does not tell us not to improvise. He also follows the party line on the right potato for the right dish, but he also says that you can probably get away with using any kind of potato for any kind of dish, which fits my experience in using a russet for both mashed potatoes (with a good potato ricer) and potato salad, two recipes for which russets are supposed to be inferior to waxy or `all purpose' varieties.
Part of what makes many great cookbooks such a pleasure to read is the extent to which the author introduces their own informed opinion into the writing. Both `Mastering the Art of French Cooking' and `The New Making of a Cook' would be great cookbooks without the lively opinions of Julia Child and Madeleine Kamman, but they are much better at getting their subject across than a dry presentation of quantities and procedures. If you think this is unimportant, take a quick look at a few recipes in `The Joy of Cooking' and you will see an ample amount of humor in even this encyclopedic collection of recipes.
One thing I especially enjoyed in this book was the affirmation of the doctrine in Ms. Kamman's book that in spite of all the butter, pork fat, goose fat, or olive oil in popular recipes, French cooking is NOT about high fat content. Peterson is especially good on fats in general and butter in particular, as he hits all the right notes about cooking with butter. For one thing, he discounts the common practice so popular with TV culinary personalities of mixing butter and oil to raise the burn point of butter solids. He says it simply does not keep the butter solids from going black. He also clearly differentiates plain clarified butter from the Indian staple, ghee, where the butterfat is taken to a darker brown than is done by simple clarification.
I even found something new on my favorite cookbook subject, omelets. Peterson gives two different techniques and clearly differentiates both the method and the cultural differences in French cooking between the omelet and scrambled eggs.
The bad news is that if this book may be in danger of loosing its market, and it may go out of print. The good news is that you should be able to get a copy from our beloved Amazon.com for cheap.
A Glorious Book!.......2005-06-19
This book has ample recipes for advanced beginners, with most for intermediate experience level home cooks. Yes, some recipes are for advanced cooks, or moderately persistent intermediate cooks! The meals are well worth the preparation.
These recipes are not rocket science; Peterson guides one well through the more unfamiliar techniques as needed. These are generally extremely well written recipes, often with a commentary on a dish's history or general context, and gives many lessons in technique, without "lecturing". Best of all, the few recipes I've tried have been very tasty!
Do read "Read this first", the first 30 pages, before progressing to individual recipes, to get a broad idea of what it to be presented, and needed as backgroundl Curiously, he recommends not to saute or cook at higher heat in a mixture of butter and oil. That's his choice, however I've seen this mixture as the saute norm, rather than an exception, in French kitchens in the USA and in France. He is an American cook, not a Classically trained French master chef.
Some recipe topics include: Various salads, assorted cooked vegetables, pates and terrines, omelettes, souffles, cheese fondues, vichyssoise (not truly French in origin, but actually American), oxtail soup and stews, vegetable and fish soups, mussels, scallops, soles and lobster dishes, with easily 5 dishes within each of the named categories. It goes on with chicken, duck, veal, rabbit, and many beef dishes. Desserts include tarts, mousse, custards, crepes, cakes, and preserves. Almost encyclopedic in coverage, more than enough to keep you busy for years, cooking classic French dishes.
Even if you do not get around to cook one recipe from this book, you will enjoy reading these tantalizing recipes, and with Peterson's writing style, savor the varied selections of French dishes, learning many techniques and "secrets" from a great chef, these techniques carry over into cooking with all sorts of ingredients available at your local grocery store!
Amazon.com
There are any number of cookbooks that have come from the chefs of trendy restaurants, many of them all but useless to the home cook. The home kitchen and the restaurant kitchen are two entirely different worlds; the reasons we eat out and eat at home, whether serving our own family or guests, are worlds apart. Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton--who own and operate both Campanile, a restaurant that quickly rose to the top of the Los Angeles restaurant pile nine years ago and has remained there ever since, and the La Brea Bakery--are unique in their ability to span the two worlds, bringing a dollop of their restaurant's elegance to recipes that work in the home as well.
And it all comes down to their sense of what cooking is all about: "The purpose of this book is ... to illustrate that everyone, with a little concentration and passion, can prepare flavorful and deeply satisfying food... meals made from only the best ingredients, and the techniques of cooking we use to enhance and combine these ingredients." When those wonderful chanterelle mushrooms show up in their brief season, why be confused when you can step into the world of a Roasted Chanterelle Salad? Or Herbed Baby Chicken with Lemon-Thyme Butter? Or Penne with Gorgonzola, Walnuts, and Spinach? These are relatively simple dishes with the kinds of big, fresh flavors that will have your guests (and your family) opening their eyes wide with pleasure. You can't help but enjoy The Food of Campanile at home.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful.......1999-02-14
Eating a meal at Campanille is a pleasure. The food is wonderful, better every time, rustic, aromatic, lusty and rich. The cookbook helps you recreate their food.
The Gravlax recipe is my favorite. It is easy to prepare, very impresive, and has the silkiest texture.
Book Description
Just when you thought you knew the best of Northern Italy, along comes Lynne RossettoKasper to introduce you to Emilia-Romagna, a fertile wedge between Milan, Venice, and Florence, as gastronomically important as any land in the world. The lush homeland of balsamic vinegar, Prosciutto di Parma, tortellini, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, this is a region venerated by Italy's food cognoscenti. "Ask an Italian where to take only one meal in Italy, and, after recommending his mother's house, he will more than likely send you to EmiliaRomagna,"writes Kasper.
A cuisine at once voluptuous and refined, the dishes of Emilia-Romagna's kitchen are literally irresistible. just listen to the names"Little" Spring Soup from the 17th Century, His Eminence's Baked Penne, Modena Crumbling Cake. Then imagine sitting down to a dish of Hot Caramelized Pears with Prosciutto, a Risotto of Red Wine with Fresh Rosemary or a Pie of Polenta and Country RagÚ
The first American book to present the food of this singular northern region, The Splendid Table is an Italian cookbook for the nineties. It will take you from Parma, Bologna, Modena, Ravenna, and Ferrara to tiny villages in the foothills of the Apennines, from Renaissance banquet halls to the simplest of farmhouses, offering history, folklore, and substantive cooking tips along the way.
Among the things you will find are:
Customer Reviews:
yjm-oh!!!!!!.......2007-01-10
I used to work in a great italian restaurant. One of the books from the chef's library that stood out was this one. It has great recipes. Very true to the food. Close your eyes. Pick a recipe. Make it and its a hit!
I am one that LOOOOVES to "twik" recipes. With this book, there is no need.
Lots of work but worth it.......2007-01-01
This is a fantastic book. At first glance I set it aside as it looked labor-intensive, but as I tried it out I've had nothing but great results. Most recipies involve a *lot* of overall time and work, especially getting some of the ingredients (hard to find veal neck bones) but so far worth it!
Handmade Pastas.......2006-04-09
Delicious.
I adore this book. I love sitting down just to read the histories and evolutions of dishes. And I love the actual recipes I've made so far from it.
But most importantly, I've learned not to be afraid to make homemade pastas thanks to Kasper's easy conversational style.
The pasta doughs are simple and forgiving, and the pastas are delicious, filling, and a huge cost and nutrition savings compared to packaged.
No serious kitchen should be without this book!.......2006-03-24
My wife is a food professional and we eat very well at home. She mentioned this book after our trip through Tuscany & Umbria earlier this year and I bought it as a gift for her. Wish that we'd had it years ago! The Bolognese sauce alone is worth the price! I do not personally use the cookbook but have been hearing raves about the content - both recipes and general information about this region in Italy. This is very high praise from my hard-to-please retired teaching chef wife.
The very best regional Italian cookbook! Buy It!.......2005-07-27
`The Splendid Table' by Lynne Rossetto Kasper is simply the most splendid book I have read on a regional cuisine and it is by far and away the best of the three books on the cuisine of Emilia-Romagna, even though the other two, `Biba's Taste of Italy' by Biba Caggiano and `Recipes from My Two Villages' by Mario Batali are excellent, as far as they go. Ms. Caggiano's book is simply a collection of recipes from Emilia-Romagna and Mario's book is more of a personal diary of recipes than a thorough examination of a historical cuisine.
Ms. Kasper's book, in the year it was published, won both the James Beard and Julia Child (IACP) cookbook awards, which is roughly the same as winning both the Academy award and the Foreign Press Writers award for best picture. And, I believe this book deserved all the attention it has received. Even Mario, who has his own book on the subject, made a special point to mention this book on his `Molto Mario' show. Since I have owned the book for over a year, it is one of those cases where I deeply regret having taken so long to get to studying the volume.
All that remains, then, is to point out what it is which makes the book so good.
For starters, it covers every aspect of a region's cuisine. That is, it deals with the history, the agriculture, and the economy of the region as well as the great recipes. And, what a background we have to relate. Emilia-Romagna is not just another region in one of the world's great culinary countries. It is THE very heart and soul of that culinary tradition, even more than the fabled provinces of Tuscany (Florence) in the north and Campagna (Naples) in the south. It is the home of Italy's three most important non-wine food products, Proscuitto de Parma, Parmesano-Reggiano, and Balsamic Vinegar. On top of that, it is also the home of some of the most famous fresh pasta dishes to come out of Italy plus several of the most famous salume products from Italy (witness the name Bologna, the region's capital city, given to some of these products).
While this coverage is necessary for a complete book on this subject, it is not enough. And, this book gives us the most important component, an excellent selection of very well written recipes. And, with over five hundred pages to fill, Ms. Kasper has given us several different takes on many of the more interesting recipes. A fine example is the famous ragu Bolognese, which is offered up in at least six different variations, each for a slightly different purpose or from a different background.
Never having studied this northern (generally tomatoless) sauce in detail before, I am struck by how similar it is to the most common recipes for Texas chili. It has no beans, the meat is diced and browned, not ground, and tomato and other spices are added sparingly. In the place of dried chiles, the ragu includes cinnamon (in several of the more traditional recipes). One very odd facet of these recipes is that where a Bay leaf is specified, the author calls for the California bay leaf rather than the milder Turkish bay leaf.
The recipes are organized like all good Italian cookbooks, by course. The chapters are:
The Antipasto Course
Ragus
Essential Sauces and Stocks (In no other book have I seen such a thorough treatment of Italian broths and stocks. Ms. Kasper includes the simple traditional `brodo' but adds much more, highlighted by the rich `Il sugo de carne' or meat essence.)
Pastas
The Sweet Pastas of the Renaissance (So, not only do we get modern dishes, we also get recipes for historical dishes which one usually never finds outside a book specializing in Renaissance cooking).
Risotto, Soup, and Vegetable First Courses
Second Courses
Vegetable Side Dishes
Breads
Desserts
Aside from the atypical choice of the California bay, nothing in this book disagrees with anything I have seen from any other authority on Italian cooking. In fact, Ms. Kasper generally improves on other advice by giving more details and a finer turn to her information on ingredients, techniques, and background. I am especially happy to see recipes for some of the more complicated dishes which simply never find their way into less ambitious books, such as `bomba di riso', a northern Italian analogue to the pasta `timbale' of the south. And, while many books cover bread making in a very superficial manner, this book not only does justice to this difficult subject, it covers many of the more arcane flatbreads which tend to be overshadowed by pizza from Naples and foccacia from Genoa. Her chapter on desserts also gives the lie to Sr. Batali's often-repeated statement that the Italians are not big on sweet desserts. While many of these may have grown out of French and Austrian influences, there are tortes and tarts aplenty to enliven an Italian themed entertainment.
Ms. Kasper also gives us a very nice little guide to ingredients, mail order sources, and a bibliography composed almost entirely of Italian language sources.
It is not hard to see how Ms. Kasper has been able to produce such a great book. Elizabeth David lived in Italy and studied its cuisine for a year before producing her excellent `Italian Food'. Ms. Kasper has spent the better part of a lifetime, including five years living in Bologna, studying this cuisine. It is no surprise that the recipe writing in this book rivals that of Julia Child in `Mastering the Art of French Cooking', as this author has spent about the same time mastering her subject before committing it to paper.
Any culinary library that has any pretensions to being complete must include a copy of this book!
Amazon.com
Marlena de Blasi's life-long love affair with cooking began at age 9 on a beach along the coast of Liguria, Italy. There she met an elderly woman roasting potatoes coated with rosemary, olive oil, and salt over an open fire. "It was then," de Blasi writes, "that I began to understand that the way people eat and drink is more a measure of them than all the other measurements...." In her book, Regional Foods of Northern Italy, de Blasi finds that her adopted homeland is filled with tastes, smells, and textures that evoke far more than great meals--they are the stuff of memory and dreams.
Regional Foods of Northern Italy focuses on 10 "gastronomic regions," areas in which the author has worked, lived, and cooked: Tuscana, Umbria, Romagna, Emilia, Veneto, Lombardia, Piemonte, Val D'Aosta, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and Marche. The recipes in this book are, as de Blasi explains, only "interpretations" of these regional cuisines, since it would be nearly impossible to replicate the exact qualities of the local ingredients--the sweet white butter of the Romagnans or the chile peppers of La Marche. Still, wherever it's cooked, Pasta di Alberto Bettini, with its lacing of basalmic vinegar, is a loving expression of its native Emilia, while so simple a meal as olive oil drizzled over bread and eaten with a glass of red wine evokes the ageless hills of Tuscany. Whether you live in Stockholm or San Diego, Marlena de Blasi's fine collection of recipes can transport you--for the length of a meal, at least--on an extraordinary journey through Northern Italy. So Buon viaggio--e Buon appetito!
Book Description
This is a cookbook like no other. It evokes the essence of Northern Italy's traditional foods in a beautifully wrought amalgam of recipe and narrative. It beckons you across the wet stone of Venice's Rialto bridge into a candlelit fifteenth-century cantina. It invites you down a forest road in Umbria, where grappa-fortified fishermen toss trout onto a wood fire and stage a sunset feast. It proffers nearly two hundred recipes from the heart and soul of Italy's North, including:
• Risotto allo Zafferano Milanese • Arista! Arista! •
• Pasta delle Sfogliatrici • Pesce in Saor •
• La Salsiccia alla Moda di Lucrezia Borgia • Fegato alla Veneziana •
• Carbonada d'Enfer Arvier • Pesto di Mandorle e Noci Ferraresi •
• Pollo alla Marengo • Cialzons della Famiglia de Galateo •
• Pagnotta di Patate • Pasta e Fagioli •
• Sogliole in Gratella • Caffe alla Valdostana • Tiramisu •
This remarkable world within a book reflects the honest, authentic tastes of a people for whom food is a cardinal passion. With it in hand, you will perfume your home with the ancient and divine scents of glorious food, calling forth the ineffable essence of this land and its bounty. Let the adventure begin.
About the Author
Marlena de Blasi is an American living in Venice with her husband, Fernando. She has traveled extensively in her adopted country, stopping to savor each region's abundance. A food and wine journalist and culinary historian, her articles on food and travel have appeared in The International Herald Tribune, The St. Louis Riverfront Times, and Sacramento magazine. She is presently writing this volume's sequel, Regional Foods of Southern Italy.
Customer Reviews:
A good effort, but too lost in the romance of the place.......2006-05-01
I like the recipes in this book. They give a nice cross-section of Northern Italian cooking, and are picked as much for being interesting as typical. Also, the stories and remniscences are those of a first-rate memoirist. The problem is that the two of them combined together make for a somewhat overly flowery reading.
I struggled with the star rating on this one -- it really is a worthwhile book to have, but it has serious flaws, the most glaring being the deliberate omissions of the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige and Liguria; the author's logic is that Trentino food is largely Austrian and that of Liguria more southern Italian in style, not helping the reader to know northern Italy, but that seems to me to be an overly romantic way of looking at it. I don't really like it when cookbook authors pare down their work for reasons of accessibility or percieved consistency, because the book loses a segment of the whole picture.
It's a pity, really, because it probably is one of the better books for understanding the food of northern Italy. The flowery tone of the book that I do not particularly enjoy actually does appeal to some, and the personal stories do give a context to the book that more technical cookbooks lack. If it was a more expensive book, I probably wouldn't recommend it, but it's a little like the idea of a film reviewer saying "wait for the DVD" -- it's not that pricey, so grab a copy and see what you think. (And I do like the Modenese pancetta-and-egg scramble in the book -- very tasty.)
DESERVES TO BE IN THE KITCHEN OF EVERY SERIOUS COOK.......2000-07-20
As I write this review, the book is out-of-stock. I want to share this book with everyone, so I am hoping that my review will change things around. First of all, the recipes in this book are complex -- but -- there are books that are much more challenging. Haute Mexican and Japanese cuisine are more difficult, the first because it grew out of a class culture where the food was cooked by maids the second because it is so unlike western food. There are things in this book that are exotic, even to Bostonians where "the Italian North End" was made such an imprint on the city. There is a pasta based on yeast raised dough that is wonderful on a winter's night when snow is falling. There are superb chicken dishes and magnificent desserts. This one of only two cookbooks that I have wanted to go through, page by page, recipe by recipe, and cook everything.
Book Description
It’s Like Getting 5 Cookbooks in 1
- 179 Pastas and Sauces
- 241 Meat, Poultry, and Fish Entrees
- 158 Vegetable Dishes
- 179 Desserts
- And Much More!
CELEBRATE ITALIAN COOKING with this authoritative and engaging tribute. Author Michele Scicolone offers simple recipes for delicious classics such as lasagne, minestrone, chicken cutlets, and gelato, plus many more of your favorites; a wealth of modern dishes, such as grilled scallop salad; and a traveler’s odyssey of regional specialties from the northern hills of Piedmont to the sun-drenched islands of Sicily and Sardinia. Whether giving expert advice on making a frittata or risotto, selecting Italian ingredients, or pairing Italian wines with food, Scicolone enlivens each page with rich details of Italian food traditions. This book is a treasury to turn to for any occasion.
Praise for 1,000 Italian Recipes
"Michele Scicolone has written the best all-encompassing Italian cookbook to hit the shelves in years. Her recipes are accessible and beautifully written, and the result is a masterpiece of traditional and nontraditional Italian cookery. This tome is pure inspiration."
–Mario Batali, Chef/Owner of Babbo, Lupa, Esca, Otto, and Casa Mono (New York), and host of Food Network’s Molto Mario
"The broad range of recipes and wealth of information on Italian food found in 1,000 Italian Recipes confirms why Michele Scicolone was the only chef we would go to when we wanted to do our Sopranos Family Cookbook."
–David Chase, Creator/Executive Producer,The Sopranos
"A must-have for any serious Italian cook."
–Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, Chef, Restaurateur, Cookbook Author, and Host of PBS’s Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen
Customer Reviews:
This Says it all , if you want to cook Italian Like an Italian.......2007-10-05
I have collected more cook book , and have never had so much pleasure cooking the recipes for this great Italin cook book. All the recipes come from all over Italy and the result is that you learn about the country and it produce. Fresh natural foods that grow in that region, naturally. I like to cook simply with fresh foods,useing as many vegetables as I can find, a different recipe for. THIS IS IT. THIS IS ALL YOU NEED I am thinking of selling all the other books have have searched through for all the good and different recipes , I only found in this ONE BOOK
Want t To Eat Great Food? Buy This Cookbook........2007-09-15
Despite the badly designed paper-over-board cover that resembles a made-for-the-bargain-table reject, this is a wonderful and amazing cookbook!!! Filled with simple, yet delicious recipes, this is a must have for anyone who wants to cook great Italian food at home. If I could have only two cookbooks (or had to recommend only two to the starting at-home chef), it would be this one and Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything. Though I haven't made all 1000 recipes in Scicolone's classic, so far everything I have made has been great - which means I've got a lot of good eating ahead of me. Buy it now. (PS. Wiley you might want to update this with a better cover.)
EXCEPTIONAL RECIPES.......2006-11-16
Many hard to find Italian recipes along with ones that are Americanized but still great eating.I love cookbooks and own over 200, I go back to this one often.
If you love food....get this .......2006-07-04
We just recently bought this book and have done so many recipes from it already. The herbs, the spice combinations, are just so fantastic. We haven't made one single recipe out of this book that wasn't four-star. Read the index to get an idea of the recipes - but if you love intricate, spicy, combinations of food...buy this.
print color.......2006-06-01
I haven't tried the recipes because the print is very hard to read. It is a light green print and if one has bad eyes you will need lots of light. Very disappointed in the book because of the print.
Book Description
From the author of The Foods of Italy and The Foods of Tuscany comes a gorgeous book on the fantastic food of Italy's islands-- Sicily and Sardinia and their small neighbors, Elba, Giglio, Capri and Ischia.
Giuliano Bugialli, one of the world's leading Italian food authorities, has turned his attention to these magical places where the food is varied and unlike what is found in any other Italian region. The choices range from the seafood of the rocky coasts to the rich meats from inland, and the fabulous herbs and vegetables, cheeses, breads and desserts that are everywhere. Geography and history are responsible for such exotic accents as saffron-- Sicily's is the finest in the world-- and almonds, jasmine and honey.
Here, then, are recipes for lamb cooked with saffron and artichokes, sweet peas with mint, calamari stuffed with pasta, tuna in a vinegar sauce, and gelato scented with jasmine. Bugialli also offers photo essays on Palermo's tumultuous Vucciria, one of the world's outstanding food markets; local festivals; tuna fishing off the coast of Sicily; and the baking of the ancient bread called carta da musica.
The glorious photography was made on location, with ancient ruins, fishing boats, rugged landscapes, cathedrals, village streets and bustling markets providing the settings for the food. The photographer, John Dominis, also collaborated with the author on the hugely successful Foods of Italy, Foods of Tuscany and Bugialli on Pasta.
Customer Reviews:
Gorgeous Cookbook with Wonderful Recipes.......2005-08-10
This cookbook is stunning. It is done in the oversized format with lots of pictures and details. Mr. Bugialli gives information about the food and the people. I think I went through this book 2-3 times just looking at it and reading it before I even looked at the recipes. Good stuff in here, especially if you like seafood. (What else would people on an island eat?)Some of the items may be difficult, if not impossible to find, but he gives easy substitutions for most of them.
Incredible!.......2002-07-30
If you are familiar with the Sardinian area and the food of the land, you will LOVE this book. It is beautifully written and the pictures will astound you. Take the time to buy and enjoy this book, you'll have it for a long time.
Intense, clean, honest flavors - and almost dairy-free!.......1997-09-04
My household is full of eaters who are allergic to dairy products - but are Italian and love Italian food. Bugialli's book on Sardinian cooking saved the day. This book lets US-based cooks, using common (or easy to find) ingredients, create authentic Italian dishes that taste wonderful and are virtually dairy-free. The desserts section, of course, relies fairly heavily on dairy products. But the flavors provided by the main courses are so intense and clean, you can skip dessert and still be completely satisfied. Grazie, Signor Bugialli
Customer Reviews:
Treasuring Slow Food.......2000-09-04
A wonderful book, written with wit and intelligence about the beauty of Italian food and what is in danger of being lost to the homogeneous world of the EU. I encourage anyone to take the book with you as a guide to Italy and, if possible, to plan your trip around it. It is also a great book to give to the cook that has everything!
Books:
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- Hot Barbecue (Hot Series)
- Indian Home Cooking: A Fresh Introduction to Indian Food, with More Than 150 Recipes
- Italy: The Best Travel Writing from the New York Times
- Let's Eat Out!: Your Passport to Living Gluten And Allergy Free (Let's Eat Out!) (Let's Eat Out!)
- Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies
- Little Foods of the Mediterranean: 500 Fabulous Recipes for Antipasti, Tapas, Hors d'Oeuvres, Meze, and More
- Madhur Jaffrey's Quick And Easy Indian Cooking
- Meet Me at the Loveless
- More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age
- Dog Years: A Memoir
- The World's Biggest Book of Brainteasers & Logic Puzzles
- Writers Market 2007
- AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors
- History: Fiction or Science
- Birds of Britain and Europe
- Work Less, Make More: Stop Working So Hard and Create the Life You Really Want!
- Why Companies Fail: Strategies for Detecting, Avoiding, and Profiting from Bankruptcy
- 1998 Business Owner's Tax Savings and Financing Deskbook
The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones
Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.)
Suite Francaise
The Reach of a Chef: Beyond the Kitchen
