Easy Cooking

Author(s): Maria Bruscino Sanchez
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: 1997-07-15
Pages: 128
Review: Just what I wanted. Cookies to learn about my Italian heritage. I especially like the short descriptions of each recipe and the history of where the recipes came from, aunts, neighbors, etc.

Looking forward to trying several of the cookies and sharing with friends.I admit this is a lower score than maybe is warranted, but the cookies were nothing special. They were good, but then they were made of sugar. I would say, you will be really happy with 3 recipies out of this book, but might learn something from some others. Really not alot of info, but then again, less then 10, dollars. Having grown up in Connecticut amid its wonderful Italian bakeries, I was thrilled to find this cookbook. The fact that the author owns an Italian bakery in Waterbury was enough of a recommendation for me. So far, I have made seven of the cookie recipes, and have enjoyed them all. The only problem I had was running out of pine nuts for the Pignoli cookies. I’ll buy twice as many, next time!

One reviewer complained about the lack of photos in the book, so I am posting my own.I love this book. I have always wanted to know how to make these authentic Italian cookies…and here they are all rolled up into on great book! I think its great! SWEET MARIA’S ITALIAN COOKIE TRAY COOKBOOK IS WONDERFUL. VERY EASY RECIPES BUT QUITE A SELECTION. AMUSING LITTLE STORIES WITH THE RECIPES MAKE IT FUN TO BAKE FROM THIS BOOK. I HAVE THIS BOOK AND HAVE BOUGHT SEVERAL FOR GIFTS - RECIPIENTS VERY GLAD TO RECEIVE IT.
Price: $14.95   Buy This Book

Author(s): Phaidon Press
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Publication Date: 2005-10-01
Pages: 1264
Review: I was very excited when this book came out since I love almost everything I have ever eaten in Italy. Finally - the book that real Italians use to make all those delicious foods! Well, I found out the hard way that real Italians do not use this cookbook… it was an over-hyped book. I have made several recipes from it and none of them have been good. I am ready to sell it, but it weighs several pounds and would cost more to ship than I’d get for it. I think it’s off to the used book store for a credit for me. Don’t make the mistake I did and spend a lot of money on this book!

AUTHENTIC RECIPES?

Not even Julia Child uses so much MILK and BUTTER in her recipes….

I doubt very much that this is the TRUE translation of the book my mother used constantly when I was growing up in Italy (in Italian)…..

It was her KITCHEN BIBLE.

Nobody in the family would have eaten most of these concoctions…..This book was in exellent condition, it arrived very quickly. It has all the recipies that you need. I am very happy with my purchase.A very nice cook book that I’ll enjoy for many years. Very nicely organized text and illustrations. Just look up an ingredient such as asparagus and you’ll recieve 10 differtent recipes for asparagus all done the Italian way. The book came in excellent condition and was delivered in a timely fashion. I bought one of these for Christmas for my husband and a friend also wanted one. She is reading this large cookbook as a novel and is “learning so much…” She is loving this book and it was a terrific buy from Amazon!

mj
Price: $45.00   Buy This Book

Author(s): Jennifer Donovan
Publisher: Duncan Baird
Publication Date: 2007-05-01
Pages: 216
Review: I use this cookbook at least once or twice a week. I love that the recipes are simple and often with food that’s already in my kitchen. I’m even able to impress my Italian boyfriend, who can be a bit of a food snob. I see that there is an Easy Thai Cookbook by the same author, so I will definitely be purchasing it next.
Price: $24.95   Buy This Book

Author(s): Carla Capalbo
Publisher: Smithmark Publishers
Publication Date: 1995-09
Pages: 256
Review: Our local library has a copy of this cookbook and we’ve taken it out many times. I think it is our single favorite cookbook. For whatever reason the all the recipes we’ve tried seem to translate well into delicious food on the table. Not all cookbooks do this. The recipes and ingredients are very straightforward. We have a friend who is a first-generation Italian; we had her and her husband over for dinner and served them the saltimbocca, polenta and chick pea soup from this cookbook. She was genuinely enthusiastic and asked for the recipes. She said the soup was the closest thing she’d had to her mother’s. That was the ultimate compliment. The book is filled with color photographs that are very helpful. So now we’ve finally purchased our own copy and don’t have to worry about splattering the library’s copy with olive oil.This is a very good place to start if you are new to cooking Italian food, or even if you are somewhat of a novice cook altogether. The pictures are very helpful and they show you what to do every step of the way. It’s very uplifting to end with a finished product that looks the same as the one in the book and even better when everyone raves about the taste! I recommend this book very highly.Okay, this isn’t the definitive Italian cookbook, but for beginners this book covers a lot of basics in both recipes and techniques. I bought this while I was a college student for $5 at a “Books-a-Million” store about 12 years ago. I have so many dog-eared pages, notes and post-its in the book that it’s a miracle that it still closes. It now has a place of honor on the art shelf in my kitchen. I have gifted this cookbook (there’s a newer edition that I found recently at Borders & Waldenbooks) to many people in my family and my husband’s family. Were it not for Carla Capalbo, I probably wouldn’t have tried Baked Eggs with Tomatoes (delicious!), Lasagne made with homemade meat sauce and bechamel instead of ricotta/cottage cheese (a true time-consuming dish of love), Potatoes baked with Tomatoes, Spaghetti with Walnut Sauce, Pork Fillets with Caper Sauce, Ham and Cheese Veal Escalops, etc… We’ve made her homemade pizza, gnocchi, foccacia… You name it, I’ve made it from this cookbook with great success. There are a lot of quick and easy dishes as well as afternoon project meals.

Find this book and gift it to someone who’s just starting out on their own or just learning to cook. Most of the ingredients are cheap and easy to find. A lot of the newer celebrity chef cookbooks have exotic ingredients that can be difficult to locate in small-town America. Sure, foodie snobs will turn up their noses at this book and probably prefer Giada DiLaurentis’ stuff but you know what? This book is all about the food–not the author. For starters, I am not a purist. If Carla Capalbo and her editor want to call this “The Ultimate Italian Cookbook” and it really isn’t, fine and dandy. If they want to use non-Italian products in an Italian recipe, fine. As I am not Italian, I may do the same. What I do insist upon and insist upon strongly is that the recipes are successful. Indeedy, they are!

My favorite dish to prepare for myself for now and later (from the freezer) and for family and friends is Eggplant Parmesan (p. 48). I alter the recipe, but I am saying: This is as good as fine restaurant dining. Serve with pasta, crusty garlic bread, salad, and a good merlot, and you’ve got a winner! Even my brother, a meat and potatoes guy, loves this!

How about Asparagus with Eggs (p. 45). Serve this on a Japanese plate as a salad with a crisp white (sauvignon blanc). The eggs are cooked sunny side up. A stunner combination! Or perhaps Fennel and Orange Salad (p. 71)? This one I prepare often because it is so tasty and quick: Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil (p. 86). There are so many pasta recipes: Spaghetti with Bacon and Onion (love it), Spaghetti with Olives and Capers (I omit the capers and have added tuna from a can– I’m not a purist). There is a Penne with Tuna and Mozzarella (100) that does not have tomatoes and is tasty. Two more fab dishes are Fettuccine with Ham and Cream and Tagliatelle with Smoked Salmon. Serve each with fresh parmesan and coarse black pepper. Tonight I cooked the Herbed Burgers with a simple tomato sauce (I altered the recipe), sauted spinach in olive oil and garlic (from a Patricia Cornwell novel), fresh corn on the cob, and cherry tomatoes.

After the recipes which have always been successful, I love the pictures. What is on the cover is what is inside–full page pictures of the finished dish, including pictures of the cooking steps. This is a big, beautiful book arranged by tools and ingredients to have on hand, then by types of foods. Of course, there is always the index of recipes in the back.

This book is worth every penny I paid for it. I have had it two years and have merely begun making the 200 recipes inside. I look forward to a long relationship (and toasts with a glass of wine).This review is written from the perspective of someone that has been studying cooking for 25 years, and concentrating on Italian cooking for the last 10 years. As such, I am tougher on Italian cookbooks than other cookbooks. If something claims to be “The Ultimate Italian Cookbook” it is probably setting itself up for failure in my opinion.

I like the glossy paper and the sturdy construction of the book. I also thought the author did a nice job with their Pasta summary. The author also did a good job with the detailed directions and photos both during cooking preparation and of the finished products. The level of detail in this book seems to be designed for beginning cooks. Most of the recipes are at best reasonable approximations of Italian recipes. This book covers the classic recipes that you expect to see.

Right at the beginning of the book I found non-Italian ingredients creeping into the recipes. Cream Cheese is not an Italian product yet it shows up in Celery Stuffed with Gorgonzola. Clearly this is not an authentic Italian recipe. Crostini made with standard white sandwich bread! Again, this can hardly be passed off as Italian. Then, turkey recipes show up in the book. I love turkey, however this is not something that shows up in an Italian kitchen. I never saw turkey in the grocery store in Florence, Italy. I understand from talking to real Italians in Florence that turkeys are rare, and arrive only in the fall (for the expats) at exorbitant prices.

If you don’t have any other Italian cookbooks this one might make sense. However, if you want authentic Italian recipes this is not the book for you.

Price: $19.98   Buy This Book

Author(s): Frank Pellegrino
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: 1998-05
Pages: 182
Review: I just received my copy of Rao’s cookbook and I have to tell you that after reading through it I’m not enthused . Aside from the lemon chicken there aren’t any real originals in here (and I’m giving them Lemon Chicken as a gift as there are a zillion versions of it). There’s a lot of story telling and quite a few recipes but being an avid cookbook freakoid there’s nothing in here that looks particularly impressive. I was hoping after reading previous reviews for a new book with creative or at least unique versions of the traditional but it’s just…I dunno. No pizzaz. I really like this cookbook, I just love their sauce and the recipe for the sauces hold true to what you can buy. Also it is a interesting read for a cookbookThe recently ordered copy of Rao’s Cookbook was a REPLACEMENT for my original copy, which I used so frequently that the pages were all falling out.

This book is filled with excellent recipes that are tasty, easy to prepare, and inspirational. I have eaten many times at Rao’s , so these recipes ring a bell. But even if I had never dined there, I believe that this book would be a big hit. From basics like “Seasoned Egg Batter” and “Marinara Sauce” to excellent dishes (e.g. “Veal Francese”, “Shrimp Parmigiana”,”Swordfish Livornese”, and many many more), these tried and true recipes produce irresistable meals.

The significant essays at the beginning, the excellent photos of people and food, and the quotations from notables that are scattered throughout, successfully communicate the unique flavor of Rao’s, and encourage the reader to give the recipes a try. DON’T MISS THIS EXCELLENT BOOK.I recently ate at Rao’s in Eat Harlem and the food was excellent so I decided to buy this book and give the recipes a shot, well the first recipe I made was the Sunday gravy and it did not come out as expected. The gravy was more like soup and no matter how long I cooked it it would not thicken up. I will continue to try recipes from this book and update this post with my findings. Only reason for the 3 stars is because I am giving it the benefit of the doubt being I ate there and I loved it.Excellent cookbook because my background is Italian and many of the recipes are exceptional and without question has satisfied everyone that has eaten with us for a celebration. Thank you for this experience. Hopefully you will keep in touch regarding additions.
Price: $40.00   Buy This Book

Author(s): John Mariani
Publisher: Harvard Common Press
Publication Date: 2000-11-01
Pages: 400
Review: I grew up in Westchester County, NY with the same last name as the author, so I was interested in the Italian recipes that may match my mothers cooking. I am second generation full-blooded Italian. I was very pleased with the book in all aspects of food and heritage, and reading about family as well. I enjoy family cookbooks and the author’s back story of their personal family life. I have a fine collection of cookbooks from southern, cajun, etc.

Dolores (Mariani) LiucciMy family loves the recipes in this cookbook and we probably use it weekly. This week we are making 3 recipes from it! It is absolutely my favorite for quick, simply and robustly delicious meals. The recipes are deceptive. Sometimes they look very simple and burst with flavor, sometimes they look complicated and take a mere 30 minutes from start to finish.

I would recommend this cookbook to anyone who likes italian. We have purchased and tried many an Italian cookbook but recipe for recipe this one has the best tasting collection. My wife who is not Italian (I am) loves Italian food and when we got the first one of these books she went through it and picked out over thirty recipes to try. Every one of these we tried was excellent and then some. It is rare to get one good recipe from a cookbook, let alone dozens. At the time we purchased our first copy it was a peperback. It is worn out. Also, we have given this cookbook to most of our friends as a gift we we go over to stay. They have all called to thank us for it.I really think this book doesn’t know what it wants to be. There are many excellent recipes, but it seems to fall into the trap of treating Italian food from Italy as normative rather than taking Italian-American cooking on its own terms. I think that mars what could otherwise have been a great book.

That said, it does provide a lot of great historical material about the rise of Italian food in the United States. There are a great many personal stories and historical sidebars that make the book a worthy purchase. A lot of classic Italian-American dishes are included, even meatballs and Sunday gravy (though it’s known in this book as Galina’s Meat Sauce).

Ultimately there’s a dryness to the book that drags it down though, and it’s a hard thing to put one’s finger on where it comes from. It just doesn’t have the personality it needs to pull the job off, though it almost makes up for it in other ways. Maybe it’s the emphasis on restaurant cuisine, maybe it’s the homogenized voice of both authors, maybe just the subtle bias in favor of the Old Country that doesn’t exist in other cookbooks based on Italian American cooking. It’s not a bad book, but it isn’t the definitive book on the subject. That, it seems, has yet to be written. How does anyone write a cookbook about Italian/American cooking without including scungilli. Without even mentioning the word. Has Mr. Mariani ever cooked in a restaurant. I know he has been a critic but has his food been tested by the writing world. Had he gotten any awards. Has he put his money and his time on the line for his cooking or is he just another home cook who gets praised for who he is and not what he’s done. Mr. Mariani seems to have his favorites and ignores other obvious places. Little mention of Lombardi’s Pizza and Rao’s. Even if he doesn’t like these places he has to bow to the public support of these restaurants for over 100 years. But then he doesn’t think much of the public because he puts down the international dining guide which uses public recommendations to rate restaurants. Couldn’t he stipulate in the beginning of the book that the reader should use kosher salt and not have to say in every recipe “salt, preferably kosher.”
Price: $19.95   Buy This Book

Author(s): Jack Bishop
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: 1997-09-09
Pages: 552
Review: WoW!!! This is a great cookbook for veggies who love Italian (and who does not?)!

350 great meals, and wonderful tastes to enjoy….if you need some ideas for your veggie kitchen, this will give you great ones.

I found a little known book that is also a great help to veggies in the kitchen, by a guy named Tom, who must be some sort of master at it, you MUST give it a read, its great!!!

Delicious, Healthy And Easy - Tom’s Vegetarian Cookbook: Easy Yummy And Nutritional Vegan Recipes

Enjoy!I purchased this book for my brother who is a strict vegetarian. Growing up in an Italian family with wonderful cooks we enjoy recipes we’re familiar with and have grown up enjoying. This book contains an exceptionl large collection of recipes. The only negative is that it contains no photographs. This doesn’t concern me at all, but my brother likes the photos. If the lack of photos is unimportant to you, then you will not find a better source for Italian vegetarian recipes. This is a great book! I lost it in my recent divorce and it was one of the few books I had to go buy again. The salads and pastas stand out. It’s well-written and all the recipes are really quite simple.Being raised 1st generation Italian, I had some problems finding some of the old authentic recipes my family used to cook. Not any longer. This book brought me home. I love, love, love it and every time I have a dinner party, this is the book I turn to for a special meal that my guests rave about for weeks.

This is by far, my favorite cookbook. I am a vegan, but have no problems replacing the cheese and egg ingredients, without sacrificing the taste.

Jack Bishop is a genius.

Tina Volpe

Author, The Fast Food CrazeFor medical reasons, my husband and I had to stop eating meat and we were completely lost as to what we could eat besides veggies. I stumbled across this cookbook and purchased it for a friend who’s an established vegetarian. After I gave it to her, I found myself reading through it. I love it so much, I decided to purchase a copy for myself. The recipes are easy to make (and I’m a horrible cook), the selections are quite broad (especially when you’re clueless as to what to fix) and the manner in which the book is organized makes it easy to follow (all the pizzas are together). I highly recommend this book regardless of your status as a vegetarian: novice or experienced.
Price: $37.50   Buy This Book

Author(s): Salvatore Scognamillo
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Publication Date: 2002-06-04
Pages: 224
Review: I love this book. If you love classic Italian cuisine and have a connection to the ring-a-ding-ding dining choices of Ol’ Blue Eyes, this is perfect for you. The food is delicious, the stories are a blast and it all combines to make a delightful package. Make sure you stop by when in NYC to get Chef Sal to personalize it. Killer sauce (or gravy!).I grew up in NY, but had never heard of Patsy’s. Last week I was in New York for a meeting and was staying on 58th street. I randomly wandered over to Patsy’s and was drawn in by the articles in the window and the wall of autographed pictures. Since I was dining alone, I asked if I could borrow a copy of this book to look over. The book is great as a cookbook. The recipes seem easy to follow and have few ingredients that are all easy to come by. But the real fun of the book are the anecdotes between recipes. My favorite was the one about the time Frank allowed someone else to pick up the bill… only for their credit card to get denied. Just wait until you find out who it was… you’ll laugh out loud like I did in the middle of the restaurant.I must agree with Bill Gallagher’s comments that this book reads more like a promotion of the restaurant than a cookbook of substance. There are a lot of trademark recipes like lobster fra diavolo, chicken cacciatola, steak pizzaiola etc that are either not mentioned, or given a “simplified” treatment by stating “Buy a bottle of our … sauce and follow this”. I don’t think even Alain Ducasse or Joel Roucheon guard their signature dishes that tightly in their cookbooks.

I found that fellow New York Italian-American restaurant and personal cookbooks from Rao’s (Rao’s Recipes from the Neighborhood: Frank Pelligrino Cooks Italian with Family and Friends, and Rao’s Cookbook: Over 100 Years of Italian Home Cooking) have a much more complete coverage including all the red sauce recipes, many of which I couldn’t find in this book, and with a more detailed disclosure of seasonings.I bought this book on the strength of the many reviews that praised it. After reading it, however, I felt like I had just read a paid advertisement. At first, the references to Sinatra held a certain fascination and made me feel like an “insider.” However, page after page of cloyingly sweet testimonials, written in a style that makes one feel that you are reading PR instead of candid comments, leaves a bad taste. There are also repetitious references to the original Patsy, in his grey waiter’s suit, refilling bread baskets. Patsy sounded genuine, but I’m not so sure about his successors. By the end of the book, all of this mushy testament, perhaps unfairly, detracted from the interest in the recipes. I was left with the impression that this was a place that was treading on past glories and I decided to see what others had to say. I looked at the customer reviews on the web for those who had recently dined at Patsy’s and at least half of the reviews (from non-celebrities) reflected rude service from the front desk and serving staff and premium prices. There are some interesting recipes in this book but I just can’t help thinking that Patsy’s shot themselves in the foot with the way this book is written. I like to read cookbooks, particularly those with a story to tell, but I couldn’t wait to put this one away.The book had a torn page in it, but I really didn’t like the book and would have kept it if not for the torn page. It had some recipes that were of interest, but overall didn’t like the book.
Price: $27.50   Buy This Book

Author(s): Marguerite DiMino Buonopane
Publisher: Globe Pequot
Publication Date: 2004-09-01
Pages: 320
Review: I picked up this cookbook for several reasons. The first is that I live in Boston and have always eaten in the North End so a cookbook with recipes from that neighborhood seemed appealing. The second is that I am Italian American and although I don’t remember classic dishes being made for me I am always curious about my heritage.

This cookbook is a collection of Italian American recipes from the North End. It covers all the expected bases with everything from Minestrone Soup to Biscotti to Ravioli. All the dishes have the feel of homecooked fare. The recipes do take some time to prepare, but they are doable for home cooks and do not require and difficult techniques. Overall, it’s a pretty exhaustive collection and if you’re searching for a traditional Italian American classic you’ll probably find it here.

That said, there were some things about this cookbook that I didn’t love. The first is that there are very few pictures of food. There are pictures in the cookbook, but most are used to capture the people of the North End. If you’re buying this cookbook for sentimental value or as a souvenir this might be fine. However since my main reason in picking this up was to cook from it I would have loved to see pictures of the food, especially dishes I might be less familiar with. I also would have liked a bit more background on some of the dishes. Where did they originate from? What is the story behind them? I always enjoy knowing the background behind what I am making.

The other thing worth keeping in mind is that since this book is all about the traditional and classic dishes it may not feel unique to you if you have a lot of other Italian American or Italian cookbooks. This is the case for me and I felt like most of these dishes I already had recipes for in other cookbooks. If this is your first Italian American cookbook though this may not be an issue.

The bottom line is that this is a solid cookbook. It has most of the classic dishes Americans have come to associate with Italy so if you’re looking for a classic recipe you’ll probably find it here. Unfortunately the lack of pictures makes it less enjoyable to cook from in comparison to other Italian cookbooks and the fact that it is all classic dishes means that overlap happens between other Italian American Cookbooks.I have never written a review for amazon.com before, but I feel so strongly about this book I was compelled to write one. I’ve had the first version of this book, for too many years to remember, so used that it is held together with elastic bands and handled with great care. I’ve bought copies for my family and friends and they too love it.

Even though the synopsis calls the recipes mostly from the Roman region of Italy, I found recipes that were distinctly Sicilian and I hadn’t seen in print anywhere before. I thought my family and their friends were the only ones that made Totos! ( and called them that too! lol) Also, many recipes go under different names from what my family and our local Sicilian community called them and were included in the book. A few recipes that were lost in my family after the elders passed away were thankfully given back to the younger generation because of this book. This is almost as good has holding your Nanna and Nonno’s cookbook in your hands.

I really love it, as you can tell, especially since it has the distinct advantage, for me, of coming from a Boston/Italian-American’s slant on how food should taste. Not only is Italian cooking regional, but so is American-Italian cooking I suspect when I read other Italian cookbooks.

Buy it for the Chocolate Biscotti recipe alone. It’s worth it!This is an excellent cookbook but not very usable in the Kindle Edition.

It is very difficult to navigate through the book and the index is not linked (and is difficult to read)…

And speaking of Kindle…

I think if we buy the hard copy book on Amazon, it would be great for us Kindle owners to be able to buy the Kindle Edition for a couple more dollars!I have several italian cook books and I think this is one of the best. I was brought up with several of these recipes but had forgotten them. This book not only brought me back, but it also showed me how to make them again. I can’t say enough about this book. It is great.This is a wonderful cookbook, but unfortunately it has not been formatted to work with Kindle. While the chapters are linked to the Table of Contents, neither the chapter lists of recipe titles nor the index are linked, meaning you have to scroll through many pages to read most recipes. Once you find one you like, you can bookmark it–but it is a laborious & frustrating process. I will be very cautious about buying cookbooks for the Kindle in future.

Save your money and buy the paper version.
Price: $16.95   Buy This Book