Italian Country Cooking: For the American Kitchen: A Cookbook

With Italian inspired cuisine so popular these days, it's worth it to have a good, all-around cookbook on hand that defines the terms, illustrates and describes the techniques, and includes recipes for most of the traditional dishes. All the recipes include the Italian name for the dish as well as the English name, which is especially useful if you intend to travel there and want to be familiar with what you'll see on the menus. The less familiar ingredients are described, as well as how they are prepared and which parts are used for what. Pasta can be made with a food processor and pasta machine or made manually with a well of flour and eggs and rolled out by hand. With both presentations, you can choose the method you prefer. This book gives enough of a basis to allow the adventurous cook to try new things, as well as easily follow Italian chefs on TV. While it isn't filled with shiny pictures, it is a good standard cookbook to have on hand. Recipes are well presented and easy to follow, as is the author's style. As a frequent instructor, she understands what the American cook needs to know and how best to get that across. It's easy to become inundated with gorgeous, but sometimes impractical, Italian cookbooks. You can save a lot of shelf space (and money) by buying this one. It is really all you need.