Italian Classics (The Best Recipe Series)

Rating:
Summary: cucina di geek
Review: Cooks' Illustrated, surely, is many things to many people. I like to think of them as cooking for the hard-core geeks; they slice and dice recipes as well as vegetables, and work the kinks out of them to make what is at least their idea of the best possible version of a meal. To the geek chef, their books are the technical flip side of the theoretical work of Alton Brown, Shirley Corriher, and Harold McGee.

Don't pick this book up thinking that you're going to get someone's Italian nonna's sunday gravy recipe; that's what the Sopranos Family Cookbook is for. This is very technical stuff that involves stripping the great recipes down to their bare essentials and rebuilding them from the ground up. Sacred cows of Italian cuisine, as in everything else they do, are scrutinized very carefully, and slaughtered as often as not. Only the most basic definition of the dish is taken for granted. The end result is sometimes minimalist; the Baked Ziti recipe, for example, has no ricotta in it and is almost vegetarian. The end result is a dizzying book that should be on the shelf of anyone who likes to cook Italian. Finally, the frequent sidebars on cooking equipment, a Cooks Illustrated staple, offer deep background on the techniques in the recipes.

Now with raves like that, why only 4 stars, you might be asking? Well, it's not perfect. The Best Recipe series presents itself as a bible of cooking, and it's not; glaring omissions in this book include meat lasagna (though the big bragging point on the dust jacket is the vegetable lasagna recipe) and cannoli. There is also a tendency to repeat articles from earlier books, an understandable but occasionally annoying situation that tends to leave the reader feeling as though the magazine people are trying to cut corners. And the appeal of this book isn't universal; the Cooks Illustrated style is, as I said, very technical, and a bit chatty at times. If you just want the recipes and don't care about the particulars, this book will bore you. Me, I like cookbooks I can read, so this isn't a problem.

So, in conclusion, I say this: if you like chomping data as much as you like chomping food, this book will rock your world. If not, the recipes are still pretty good.

Rating:
Summary: Italian Classics
Review: Italian Classics is easy to understand and has great tips on everything from balsamic vinegar to meatballs. It makes cooking simple and fun. The recipes also include tricks the pros use as well as home style cooking techniques. It is a great addition to any food lovers library.

Rating:
Summary: Best of the Best
Review: The Best Recipe series have outdone themselves. This is the best one yet.(I am partial to cooking american-italian food at home). This illustrates great recipes that are tasty and user friendly. I especially love the risotto cakes. This book goes beyound recipes and teaches one about techniques and what to do or not to do. THIS IS A GREAT LAST MINUTE GIFT FOR THE NOVICE CHEF TO THE AVID COOK FOR THE HOLIDAYS OR ANY OCCASION. Definately a keeper if you like italian cooking.

Rating:
Summary: Best Practical Italian Cookbook I've ever used.
Review: This cookbook is by far the best Italian Cookbook I have ever used. While many Italian cookbooks require ingrediants that are both expensive and hard to find, Italian Classics' recipes are intended to be made with ingrediants that are easy to find in an American grocery store. The recipes, however, don't sacrifice flavor at all. Every recipe that I have cooked, without exception, has been excellent. I was so surprised by the excellence of the recipes that I am in the process now of asking my family to give me other cook books from the Cook's Illustrated "Best Recipe" series for Christmas. They explain the steps of cooking so novice cookers can use the recipes as well. I recommend this book to anyone who loves Italian cooking.

Rating:
Summary: Rich of great recipes and information
Review: This is a great book for anyone interested in cooking italian. It provides very in depth discussions of many classic italian dishes and many possible variants. I agree with a previous reviewer that this book is not perfect and some dishes miss essential ingredients. But I still think it is a great book. Most of the recipes are excellent and, most importantly, this books provides a lot of information on why and how: once you will digest this type of information you'll be able to even get creative a make your own italian style dishes.