Beloved cooking doyenne and successful restaurateur once again teams up with her daughter Tanya to present a cornucopia of regional Italian food.
In Bastianich’s (Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy, 2009, etc.) latest cookbook—the companion volume to her forthcoming TV series exploring Italian-American communities—her warm, welcoming demeanor permeates the more than 175 “lovely, lusty” recipes. Using nine categories, covering everything from hot and cold antipasti dishes to Zuppe, Meat, Poultry and Seafood, to a generous selection of nearly two-dozen delectable dessert ideas, Bastianich showcases the heritage she proudly wears on her sleeve. While many of these recipes could be considered basic dinner-table staples, she distinguishes the versions in this volume with regional profiles of the artisans who bring their American restaurants and food stores alive with authentic Italian cuisine. Recipes that feature antipasti from the Bronx, artichokes from Northern California and New England’s Halibut and Boston Cream Cakes are as alluring as the stories and generous photographs that accompany them. There’s even a section on Chicago versus New York–style pizza. A cake-heavy dessert section includes traditional almond paste–based Italian Rainbow Cookies, Spumoni, Tiramisu and an enterprising Blueberry Frangipane Tart. And be sure to read up on how to make your own Limoncello liqueur.
This substantial collection furthers Bastianich’s tradition of bringing Italian culture to American tables by way of mouthwateringly hearty cuisine.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-59567-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
With this detailed, versatile cookbook, readers can finally make Momofuku Milk Bar’s inventive, decadent desserts at home, or see what they’ve been missing.
In this successor to the Momofuku cookbook, Momofuku Milk Bar’s pastry chef hands over the keys to the restaurant group’s snack-food–based treats, which have had people lining up outside the door of the Manhattan bakery since it opened. The James Beard Award–nominated Tosi spares no detail, providing origin stories for her popular cookies, pies and ice-cream flavors. The recipes are meticulously outlined, with added tips on how to experiment with their format. After “understanding how we laid out this cookbook…you will be one of us,” writes the author. Still, it’s a bit more sophisticated than the typical Betty Crocker fare. In addition to a healthy stock of pretzels, cornflakes and, of course, milk powder, some recipes require readers to have feuilletine and citric acid handy, to perfect the art of quenelling. Acolytes should invest in a scale, thanks to Tosi’s preference of grams (“freedom measurements,” as the friendlier cups and spoons are called, are provided, but heavily frowned upon)—though it’s hard to be too pretentious when one of your main ingredients is Fruity Pebbles. A refreshing, youthful cookbook that will have readers happily indulging in a rising pastry-chef star’s widely appealing treats.
Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-72049-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
The undisputed champion of the self-conscious and the self-deprecating returns with yet more autobiographical gems from his apparently inexhaustible cache (Naked, 1997, etc.).
Sedaris at first mines what may be the most idiosyncratic, if innocuous, childhood since the McCourt clan. Here is father Lou, who’s propositioned, via phone, by married family friend Mrs. Midland (“Oh, Lou. It just feels so good to . . . talk to someone who really . . . understands”). Only years later is it divulged that “Mrs. Midland” was impersonated by Lou’s 12-year-old daughter Amy. (Lou, to the prankster’s relief, always politely declined Mrs. Midland’s overtures.) Meanwhile, Mrs. Sedaris—soon after she’s put a beloved sick cat to sleep—is terrorized by bogus reports of a “miraculous new cure for feline leukemia,” all orchestrated by her bitter children. Brilliant evildoing in this family is not unique to the author. Sedaris (also an essayist on National Public Radio) approaches comic preeminence as he details his futile attempts, as an adult, to learn the French language. Having moved to Paris, he enrolls in French class and struggles endlessly with the logic in assigning inanimate objects a gender (“Why refer to Lady Flesh Wound or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?”). After months of this, Sedaris finds that the first French-spoken sentiment he’s fully understood has been directed to him by his sadistic teacher: “Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.” Among these misadventures, Sedaris catalogs his many bugaboos: the cigarette ban in New York restaurants (“I’m always searching the menu in hope that some courageous young chef has finally recognized tobacco as a vegetable”); the appending of company Web addresses to television commercials (“Who really wants to know more about Procter & Gamble?”); and a scatological dilemma that would likely remain taboo in most households.
Naughty good fun from an impossibly sardonic rogue, quickly rising to Twainian stature.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-316-77772-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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