Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Barefoot Contessa Cookbook or Lidias Italy

Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

Author: Ina Garten

For more than twenty years, Barefoot Contessa, the acclaimed specialty food store, has been cooking and baking extraordinary dishes for enthusiastic customers in the Hamptons. For many of those years, people have tried to get the exuberant owner, Ina Garten, to share the secrets of her store. Finally, the energy and style that make Barefoot Contessa such a special place are shown here, with dozens of recipes and more than 160 breathtaking photographs, in The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.

Ina's most popular recipes use familiar ingredients, but they taste even better than you would expect. Her Pan-Fried Onion Dip is the real thing, with slowly car-amelized onions and fresh sour cream. Tomato soup is created from oven-roasted tomatoes and fresh basil to intensify the flavors. Meat loaf is as good as your grandmother's, but it's healthier because it's made with ground turkey and fresh herbs. The light and flaky Maple-Oatmeal Scones are baked with rolled oats, whole wheat, and real maple syrup. Now these and other famous Barefoot Contessa recipes can be prepared at home.

Ina says that before she owned a specialty food store she often spent a week making dinner for six friends. Her experience at Barefoot Contessa has given her hundreds of ideas for creating wonderful parties in a few hours. And they're all in this book. Crab Cakes with Rйmoulade Sauce can be stored overnight in the refrigerator and sautйed just before the guests arrive. Cheddar Corn Chowder can be made days ahead, reheated, and served with a salad and bread for a delicious autumn lunch. The ingredients for Grilled Salmon Salad can all be prepared ahead and tossed together before serving. The batter for the Raspberry Corn Muffins can be mixed a day before and popped into the oven just before breakfast.

Ina Garten teaches us how to entertain with style, simplicity, and a relaxed sense of fun. There are notes throughout the book for giving cocktail parties, lunches, and dinner parties where everything is done before the guests arrive. And there are easy instructions for creating gorgeous party platters that don't even require you to cook!

With Ina Garten and The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, you have the perfect recipe for hosting parties that are easy and fun for everyone-including the cook.

Library Journal

Garten opened her upscale take-out shop in East Hampton 20 years ago, and its still thriving today (some might say that its prices are what are legendary). Many of the recipes she shares in her lavishly illustrated book 200 color photographs are rather simple, and a number of them are familiar: Hummus and Guacamole, Baked Ham and Roast Chicken. Each chapter also includes an idea for a party platter for a buffet, from Fruit and Cheese to Country Desserts. An attractive book, but theres not much new here; for area libraries and others with large entertaining collections. Recommended for most collections.

What People Are Saying

Patricia Wells
Like Ina Garten herself, this stunning, lively new book is about style, simplicity, comfort, and good times among family and friends. Her natural approach to food is frank and forward, and you are sure to treasure each tip, each story, each recipe. (Patricia Wells, author of At Home with Patricia Wells: Cooking in Provence)


Steven Spielberg
I enjoy Barefoot Contessa both for its presentation, which is just about the best I've ever seen, and also because the food tastes like home cooking-because it is. I'm drawn in as much by its personality as I am by what they have to offer.


Eli Zabar
No store more fully embodies the easy, stylish elegance of the Hamptons than Barefoot Contessa. And no one understands what successful entertaining is all about better than Ina Garten. Born of retailing, her wonderful accessible recipes have been tested on you and me for a very long time and they really work. Bravo! (Eli Zabar, owner of E.A.T., The Vinegar Factory, Eli's Bread, Across the Street, and Eli's Manhattan)




Lidia's Italy: 140 Simple and Delicious Recipes from the Ten Places in Italy Lidia Loves Most

Author: Lidia Matticchio Bastianich

In this exciting new book the incomparable Lidia takes us on a gastronomic journey—from Piemonte to Puglia—exploring ten different regions that have informed her cooking and helped to make her the fabulous cook that she is today. In addition, her daughter Tanya, an art historian, guides us to some of the nearby cultural treasures that enrich the pursuit of good food.

· In Istria, now part of Croatia, where Lidia grew up, she forages again for wild asparagus, using it in a delicious soup and a frittata; Sauerkraut with Pork and Roast Goose with Mlinzi reflect the region’s Middle European influences; and buzara, an old mariner’s stew, draws on fish from the nearby sea.

· From Trieste, Lidia gives seafood from the Adriatic, Viennese-style breaded veal cutlets and Beef Goulash, and Sacher Torte and Apple Strudel.

· From Friuli, where cows graze on the rich tableland, comes Montasio cheese to make fricos; the corn fields yield polenta for Velvety Cornmeal-Spinach Soup.

· In Padova and Treviso rice reigns supreme, and Lidia discovers hearty soups and risottos that highlight local flavors.

· In Piemonte, the robust Barolo wine distinguishes a fork-tender stufato of beef; local white truffles with scrambled eggs is “heaven on a plate”; and a bagna cauda serves as a dip for local vegetables, including prized cardoons.

· In Maremma, where hunting and foraging are a way of life, earthy foods are mainstays, such as slow-cooked rabbit sauce for pasta or gnocchi and boar tenderloin with prune-apple Sauce, with Galloping Figs for dessert.

·In Rome Lidia revels in the fresh artichokes and fennel she finds in the Campo dei Fiori and brings back nine different ways of preparing them.

· In Naples she gathers unusual seafood recipes and a special way of making limoncello-soaked cakes.

· From Sicily’s Palermo she brings back panelle, the delicious fried chickpea snack; a caponata of stewed summer vegetables; and the elegant Cannoli Napoleon.

· In Puglia, at Italy’s heel, where durum wheat grows at its best, she makes some of the region’s glorious pasta dishes and re-creates a splendid focaccia from Altamura.

There are 140 delectable recipes to be found as you make this journey with Lidia. And along the way, with Tanya to guide you, you’ll stop to admire Raphael’s fresco Triumph of Galatea, a short walk from the market in Rome; the two enchanting women in the Palazzo Abbatellis in Palermo; and the Roman ruins in Friuli, among many other delights. There’s something for everyone in this rich and satisfying book that will open up new horizons even to the most seasoned lover of Italy.

Publishers Weekly

Surely one of the secrets to Lidia Bastianich's success as a television personality is the high quality of her companion books. Bastianich's never seem like mere collections of stills from the show; they impart new information and are full of dishes even dedicated Italophiles may not know, such as Gnocchi Ravioli with Sausage-Spinach Filling and Sage Pudding. However, the concept for her latest show, and as a result this eponymous book, feels slightly haphazard. While Bastianich is to be applauded for overlooking the obvious Tuscan targets like Florence to concentrate instead on the region's less well-known natural beauty in the Maremma area with its mammoth national park, her "places" are inconsistent. They include single cities (Padova and Treviso) and whole regions (Piedmont). And while Bastianich's native Istria offers alluring specialties such as Fresh Pasta Quills with Chicken Sauce, it makes an odd subject for an opening chapter, since it is no longer part of Italy. Bastianich's daughter and coauthor, who runs an Italian tourism company, suggests a handful of sites to visit in each location, be it Spaccanapoli in Naples or a Cistercian abbey 35 miles outside of Turin. Bastianich is probably incapable of creating a truly bad book—the recipes are as functional as they are tempting—but this all-over-the-boot offering is not her best. (Apr.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Judith Sutton - Library Journal

Bastianich is the owner of Felidia's in New York City and of Lidia's restaurants in Pittsburgh and Kansas City, as well as the author of four previous cookbooks. Her latest title, the companion to her new PBS series, focuses on her favorite Italian regions, from Istria (now part of Croatia), where she was born, to Puglia, the "heel" of Italy's "boot." Recipes are organized by course within each region (there is a separate episode listing, as well as a master list by course), and while there are some sophisticated restaurant creations here, Bastianich has a fondness for rustic, traditional favorites, such as Alma's Cooked Water Soup or Sicilian Chicken Cacciatora with Eggplant. Her daughter Tanya is an art historian, and each chapter includes a bonus section called "Tanya's Tour" on not-to-be-missed cultural highlights. Highly recommended.



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