Italian Grill

From Mario Batali, superstar chef and author of Molto Italiano, comes the ultimate handbook on Italian grilling, which will become an instant must-have cookbook for home grillers.

Easy to use and filled with simple recipes, Mario Batali’s new grilling handbook takes the mystery out of making tasty, simple, smoky Italian food. In addition to the eighty recipes and the sixty full-color photographs, Italian Grill includes helpful information on different heat-source options, grilling techniques, and essential equipment. As in Molto Italiano, Batali’s distinctive voice provides a historical and cultural perspective as well.

Italian Grill features appetizers; pizza and flatbreads; fish and shellfish; poultry; meat; and vegetables. The delicious recipes include Fennel with Sambuca and Grapefruit; Guinea Hen Breasts with Rosemary and Pesto; Baby Octopus with Gigante Beans and Olive-Orange Vinaigrette; and Rosticciana, Italian-Style Ribs.

Happy Days with the Naked Chef

Jamie Oliver’s Happy Days with the Naked Chef is in the same mold as his bestselling cookbooks, The Naked Chef and The Naked Chef Takes Off: recipes for simple, comforting food. This time, however, he has some interesting additions from his travels to Australia, New Zealand, America, and Japan. There are three new ideas in Happy Days with the Naked Chef. Oliver has included a chapter on “Comfort Food”–the kind of cooking Nigel Slater and Nigella Lawson specialize in. There are recipes for British favorites like Toad in the Hole, Fish Finger Buttie, and Sticky Sausage Bap with Melted Cheese and Brown Sauce. In his “Quick Fixes” chapter, Oliver has selected dishes where saving time and minimal washing up are the key ingredients. These include a Steak Sarnie and Chicken Breast Baked in a Bag with Mushrooms, Butter, White Wine, and Thyme. He has also included a “Kids Club” chapter, which offers inspiration for parents trying to get their children excited about food. The new additions don’t dominate the book as the remaining two-thirds contain Oliver’s standard Italian-style fare: simple salads, fish, meat, vegetables, breads, and desserts. Don’t miss the excellent recipe for Medallions of Beef with Morels and Marsala and Crème Fraîche Sauce. Oliver has also been traveling and you’ll find recipes with bok choy, soy sauce, and ginger popping up here and there–delicious! –Elizabeth Murgatroyd, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly
Big-energy, high-profile Food Network celebrity Oliver (The Naked Chef) says this book addresses what the average person wants to cook at home; and perhaps never has a personality cookbook ranged so far across high and not-so-high cuisine. Oliver proposes the best way to eat store-bought fish sticks (broil them and serve on a white roll with ketchup) and devises easy dishes he calls Quick Fixes, such as Chicken Breast Baked in a Bag with Cannellini Beans, Leeks, Cream and Marjora. He suggests how to get kids involved (make Chocolate Cookies with Soft Chocolate Centers) and then proceeds to mouth-watering adult fare: Pot-Roasted Pork in White Wine with Garlic, Fennel and Rosemary]; Lovely Pan-Baked Plaice with Spinach, Olives and Tomatoes; and Medallions of Beef with Morels and Marsala and CrŠme Fraiche Sauce. Oliver’s impulse to wow an audience is reflected in such recipes as Whole Roasted Salmon Wrapped in Herbs and Newspaper, to be cooked on a camp fire or over a barbecue, and Flour and Water Crust Chicken, in which a whole bird is enclosed, baked and brought to the table in a pastry covering. Chocolate and Whole Orange Pudding is actually baked with a pre-boiled orange in the center. A small quibble, but home cooks should pay attention when assembling ingredients because they are not always presented in simple lists. The 11 components in Japanese Rolled Pork with Plums, Cilantro, Soy Sauce and Spring Onions, for example, are given in only six lines. Oliver concludes with some of his favorite beverages, which include Easy Peasy Ginger Beer and the Margarita. (Oct.)Forecast: Oliver’s previous two entries from Hyperion have been very successful, and this will follow the pattern. The last week in October, he’ll tour seven cities, conduct cooking shows in bookstores and throw in some drumming as well, a musical talent he practices in his spare time.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Passione: Gennaro Contaldo’s Italian Cookbook

It is almost certain that this book was written and published because Gennaro Contaldo is a mentor and close friend to the very celebrated chef Jamie Oliver. While the connection with Oliver and with Gennaro’s own UK / Italian mentor, Antonio Carluccio adds interest to the book and while it is unlikely that I would have bought the book without these connections, I can with complete honesty say that this book stands on its own two feet as a good Italian cookbook and a superior evocation of life growing up in an Italian family where raising, growing, fishing, and hunting animals and plants for food was the whole family’s primary avocation.

The stories of Gennaro’s childhood, especially those directly related to hunting, fishing, and animal husbandry succeed in painting a picture of life along the Amalfi coast which succeeds much better than several culinary memoirs of Italy which I have recently read and reviewed. Mr. Contaldo is not a strong writer and I suspect he received a considerable amount of literary help in transcribing his oral memories of life in Southern Italy to paper. But, the stories are so vivid and so heart-felt that I can almost smell the blood and the sea and the mushrooms that are the subject of so many stories.

From the vantage point of an American who has read many stories of the romance northern Europeans feel for Italy, it is truly surprising to see a reverse of this scenario. Gennaro had a great desire to live and work in England as he was growing up in Italy. Once in the UK, he worked with several restaurants, including a stint in one of Antonio Carluccio’s restaurants. When he was head chef at one London restaurant, he trained the young Jamie Oliver, who treats him as his London dad.