La Cucina Di Lidia

Rating:
Summary: A DELICIOUS FEAST!!!
Review: A book close to my heart. My family hails from the island of Krk just south of Istria. As a first generation American I am fortunate to have the flavorings of the Adriatic in my soul and palate. This book literally brought tears to my eyes. My family will have hours of enjoyment from this book. As a fellow child of Astoria,Queens---HVALA LIDIA!!!

Rating:
Summary: IT'S NOT MY MOTHER'S ITALIAN COOKING
Review: I first encountered Lidia Bastianich through the public television program, "New York, The Great Chefs." Ms. Bastianich made Grapes in Grappa. I had never heard of grappa but I knew I wanted to copy that recipe and so I bought the companion book for the series. Many years later, La Cucina di Lidia crossed my hands and I'm glad it did. And not just for the recipes, which are superb. Lidia and I are the same age. While I grew up is a working class suburb in the American Midwest,with its small lots ringed by chainlink fence, Lidia grew up in a country still scarred by WWII. We were not wealthy -- my father, who never went to high school, was a skilled laborer -- but we never had the sort of struggle to put food on the table that Lidia's family had. That struggle and the story of her families immigration is told in this cookbook. And, yes, it is a cookbook, but it is just as interesting as a document of perhaps the "other side" of the Baby Boom generation that has been soundly criticised for materialism and self-indulgence. From generations of Istrian cooks, Lidia learned how to feed a family suberbly. To my Irish and Polish family, the Italian dishes that were making their way into the Midwest in the 1950s were exotic. I remember my mother buying the "spaghetti kit," (can I mention the brand - Chef Boyardee) a yellow, rectangular box in which there was a long, thin box of dry spaghetti, a medium size can of tomato sauce and a small can of grated cheese. When there were only 2 children in the family, we were fed from one box, but as the children grew in size and increased in number, so did the number of boxes it took to feed the family. It was with considerable trepidation that my mother bought her first pound of dry pasta and cans of whole tomatoes and tomato paste and made her first "Italian" dinner from scratch. More than red sauce, this is a wonderful book that captures an era and an area. By the way, Lidia also answers the question of dry v. "fresh" pasta. A great book.

Rating:
Summary: IT'S NOT MY MOTHER'S ITALIAN COOKING
Review: I first encountered Lidia Bastianich through the public television program, "New York, The Great Chefs." Ms. Bastianich made Grapes in Grappa. I had never heard of grappa but I knew I wanted to copy that recipe and so I bought the companion book for the series. Many years later, La Cucina di Lidia crossed my hands and I'm glad it did. And not just for the recipes, which are superb. Lidia and I are the same age. While I grew up is a working class suburb in the American Midwest,with its small lots ringed by chainlink fence, Lidia grew up in a country still scarred by WWII. We were not wealthy -- my father, who never went to high school, was a skilled laborer -- but we never had the sort of struggle to put food on the table that Lidia's family had. That struggle and the story of her families immigration is told in this cookbook. And, yes, it is a cookbook, but it is just as interesting as a document of perhaps the "other side" of the Baby Boom generation that has been soundly criticised for materialism and self-indulgence. From generations of Istrian cooks, Lidia learned how to feed a family suberbly. To my Irish and Polish family, the Italian dishes that were making their way into the Midwest in the 1950s were exotic. I remember my mother buying the "spaghetti kit," (can I mention the brand - Chef Boyardee) a yellow, rectangular box in which there was a long, thin box of dry spaghetti, a medium size can of tomato sauce and a small can of grated cheese. When there were only 2 children in the family, we were fed from one box, but as the children grew in size and increased in number, so did the number of boxes it took to feed the family. It was with considerable trepidation that my mother bought her first pound of dry pasta and cans of whole tomatoes and tomato paste and made her first "Italian" dinner from scratch. More than red sauce, this is a wonderful book that captures an era and an area. By the way, Lidia also answers the question of dry v. "fresh" pasta. A great book.

Rating:
Summary: IT'S NOT MY MOTHER'S ITALIAN COOKING
Review: I first encountered Lidia Bastianich through the public television program, "New York, The Great Chefs." Ms. Bastianich made Grapes in Grappa. I had never heard of grappa but I knew I wanted to copy that recipe and so I bought the companion book for the series. Many years later, La Cucina di Lidia crossed my hands and I'm glad it did. And not just for the recipes, which are superb. Lidia and I are the same age. While I grew up is a working class suburb in the American Midwest,with its small lots ringed by chainlink fence, Lidia grew up in a country still scarred by WWII. We were not wealthy -- my father, who never went to high school, was a skilled laborer -- but we never had the sort of struggle to put food on the table that Lidia's family had. That struggle and the story of her families immigration is told in this cookbook. And, yes, it is a cookbook, but it is just as interesting as a document of perhaps the "other side" of the Baby Boom generation that has been soundly criticised for materialism and self-indulgence. From generations of Istrian cooks, Lidia learned how to feed a family suberbly. To my Irish and Polish family, the Italian dishes that were making their way into the Midwest in the 1950s were exotic. I remember my mother buying the "spaghetti kit," (can I mention the brand - Chef Boyardee) a yellow, rectangular box in which there was a long, thin box of dry spaghetti, a medium size can of tomato sauce and a small can of grated cheese. When there were only 2 children in the family, we were fed from one box, but as the children grew in size and increased in number, so did the number of boxes it took to feed the family. It was with considerable trepidation that my mother bought her first pound of dry pasta and cans of whole tomatoes and tomato paste and made her first "Italian" dinner from scratch. More than red sauce, this is a wonderful book that captures an era and an area. By the way, Lidia also answers the question of dry v. "fresh" pasta. A great book.

Rating:
Summary: Some reservations about this book
Review: I love Lidia and love her style of cooking. This was her first book and therein lies the rub. I found this book almost inpenetrable. Great stories about her childhood in Istria, but the recipes are almost universally unusable. Octopus salad, cuttlefish sacs, etc. Not the kind of thing you'd be inclined to try in your own kitchen. Lidia is very bright, that much is obvious. But I think she'd tried too hard to impress us with her intellect. I'd try another of her titles, if I were you.