From the moment I opened this book I realised it was not going to be just another Italian recipe book.
Italian recipes
I love Italian recipes! This is a well presented history, geography and story book as well as being the consumate slow cooking recipe book. I quickly flicked through the pages noting a couple of recipes that looked interesting and checked the pantry for the ingredients.
But I then started to read the first chapter and gradually found myself drawn into the pages of family life past and present in a large close knit Italian family.
Many of the recipes are just too large for my husband and I but they will be perfect to share with friends as the Fall and Winter months now invite us to spend time inside with a fire, keeping the house cosy.
Italian Holiday Recipes
I have a wonderful Italian girlfriend who always sets aside a week to cook all her old family recipes for the Holiday Season and after reading this book three times now, I have some sweet treats to share with her this year.
With the change in the seasons and the Holiday Season coming towards us, this would make a great gift for the cooks in your family. It really is more than just a recipe book to hide on a shelf or to use just once or twice a year. These are Italian recipes to share all year with family and friends.
“A Tavola” is beautifully presented, with perfectly set up photographs, just what you would expect from The Culinary Institute of America. My only improvement recommendation is that some of the pages are dark in colour with a little too much going on in the background making for a distraction when reading the print. Other than that, I love it!
My husband just asked “How about an Italian recipe for dinner?” … so we’re having Pizza Di Spaghetti (page 77), tonight.
A Tavola!: Recipes and Reflections on Traditional Italian Home Cooking
Culinary Institute of America Dining
216 pages
Lebhar-Friedman Books
ISBN-13: 978-0867309287
