All in all, a pleasure for hungry readers.
An exploration of “the profound connection between eating and reading.”
Food blogger and Brooklyn-based butcher Nicoletti has pretty good taste in books and food alike, though some of them are acquired and perhaps won’t be widely shared. A pig’s head recipe, for example, has its gruesome aspects, and even if you call it Porchetta di Testa, there’s still that Lord of the Flies association. To her credit, Nicoletti doesn’t avoid that pairing—far from it. To her demerit, she has two chapters devoted to Donna Tartt and not a one devoted to Faulkner (corn soufflé, anyone?). Some of the recipes and their bookish pairings seem rather too obvious, and the book choices tend to the middlebrow: Lynne Banks’ The Indian in the Cupboard as inspiration for an ordinary roast beef sandwich just doesn’t quite scintillate. Sometimes the connections are a little loose, but they yield nice food anyway: Little House on the Prairie could have just as easily teamed with a recipe for corn dodgers, or for prairie oysters, for that matter, but the sausage concoction that Nicoletti serves up is an easy-to-make delight, certainly easier than taming the prairie. The author is at her best when keeping close to home and hearth and to the beloved books of childhood: readers will want not only to try her take on cacio e pepe, but also to hunt up Tomie dePaola’s Strega Nona series of Calabrian-inspired yarns. Another highlight, obvious though it may be, is a Melville-an chowdah; Nicoletti deserves a medal for explaining elsewhere why hot soup in a blender isn’t a good idea, though she doesn’t work the obvious Phantom of the Opera (or V for Vendetta) possibilities. And is it too soon to say that no Sylvia Plath recipe should involve using an oven? Good, because Nicoletti’s recipe for a Bell Jar–inspired crab and avocado salad is lovely.
All in all, a pleasure for hungry readers.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-24299-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Bugialli (Giuliano Bugialli's Foods of Italy, not reviewed) provides some unusual, challenging recipes—not an easy feat in the crowded field of Italian cookbooks. However, what is just a good cookbook could have been a great one with the inclusion of more information. A brief introduction explains the provenance of his recipes (many researched as far back as the 14th century) and declares that they derive from various regions, but the recipes themselves are free-floating, without subheads (i.e., it would be nice to know which region each comes from) and with few hints to facilitate preparation. The photographs, while luscious, are no help either since they often do not coincide with Bugialli's instructions. For example, in the recipe for Spaghetti with Air- Dried Cherry Tomatoes, Bugialli instructs the cook to toss pasta, tomatoes, and parsley in the casserole used to cook the tomatoes, then serve, but the photograph shows a serving bowl of pasta with tomatoes and parsley on top still waiting to be combined. Even more vexing was Schiacciata (a flat bread similar to focaccia) with Fresh Grapes. While the result was delicious, it looked nothing like the example, which was rectangular in shape even though the recipe calls for rolling the dough out into a circle. Nor is it clear why one should fit a 16-inch circle of dough into a 14-inch pan. Could the disparity have been due to the tough dough? No clues are forthcoming. A treat for those who enjoy leaping in with little guidance, but not for the novice. (Book-of-the-Month Club selection)
Pub Date: Oct. 27, 1994
ISBN: 1-55670-384-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
This initial entry in an international vegetarian series disproves the myth that vegetarian cooking is always light and healthy. Della Croce (Antipasti, not reviewed) packs these simple recipes with large amounts of oil and cheese. In pasta recipes, her frequent encouragement to use some of the pasta-cooking water to keep things moist is puzzling, since oil-based preparations like walnut sauce and lemon-and-black-olive sauce have more than enough olive oil to coat the noodles. Although the introduction claims that the book contains ``many nonegg and nondairy recipes,'' vegans are pretty much out of luck here. Out of 19 main courses, only two contain no dairy or egg products, and one of those is unsauced polenta. (Several could easily be converted by replacing butter with olive oil, just as several pasta and soup dishes could be served without grated Parmesan sprinkled on top, but neither of these is provided as an option.) The use of animal products itself would not be objectionable, since della Croce correctly notes that many of the vegan first-course pastas and soups are substantial enough for a whole meal, but in main dishes like a zucchini casserole, one pound of mozzarella, one cup grated Parmesan, and four eggs cover up, rather than enhance, the fresh flavor of vegetables. Ultimately, since Italy's food is vegetable-based to begin with, many of these offerings have been covered in general Italian cookbooks by Marcella Hazan and others. Photographs have the rustic-yet-upscale look that is now apparently de rigueur for Italian cookbooks. Nothing new under the sun.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8118-0458-5
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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