Overview
"Tuscan food tastes like itself. Ingredients are left to shine. . . . So, if on your visit, I hand you an apron, your work will be easy. We'll start with primo ingredients, a little flurry of activity, perhaps a glass of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, and soon we'll be carrying platters out the door. We'll have as much fun setting the table as we have in the kitchen. Four double doors along the front of the house open to the outside--so handy for serving at a long table under the stars (or for cooling a scorched pan on the stone wall). Italian Philosophy 101: la casa aperta, the open house."
--from the Introduction In all of Frances Mayes's bestselling memoirs about Tuscany, food plays a starring role. This cuisine transports, comforts, entices, and speaks to the friendly, genuine, and improvisational spirit of Tuscan life. Both cooking and eating in Tuscany are natural pleasures. In her first-ever cookbook, Frances and her husband, Ed, share recipes that they have enjoyed over the years as honorary Tuscans: dishes prepared in a simple, traditional kitchen using robust, honest ingredients. A toast to the experiences they've had over two decades at Bramasole, their home in Cortona, Italy, this cookbook evokes days spent roaming the countryside for chestnuts, green almonds, blackberries, and porcini; dinner parties stretching into the wee hours, and garden baskets tumbling over with bright red tomatoes. Lose yourself in the transporting photography of the food, the people, and the place, as Frances's lyrical introductions and headnotes put you by her side in the kitchen and raising a glass at the table. From Antipasti (starters) to Dolci (desserts), this cookbook is organized like a traditional Italian dinner. The more than 150 tempting recipes include:
- Fried Zucchini Flowers
- Red Peppers Melted with Balsamic Vinegar
- Potato Ravioli with Zucchini, Speck, and Pecorino
- Risotto Primavera
- Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Sausage
- Cannellini Bean Soup with Pancetta
- Little Veal Meatballs with Artichokes and Cherry Tomatoes
- Chicken Under a Brick
- Short Ribs, Tuscan-Style
- Domenica's Rosemary Potatoes
- Folded Fruit Tart with Mascarpone
- Strawberry Semifreddo
- Steamed Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Sauce Frances and Ed also share their tips on stocking your pantry, pairing wines with dishes, and choosing the best olive oil. Learn their time-tested methods for hand rolling pasta and techniques for coaxing the best out of seasonal ingredients with little effort. Throw on another handful of pasta, pull up a chair, and languish in the rustic Italian way of life.
Details
- ISBN-13: 9780307885289
- ISBN-10: 0307885283
- Publisher: Clarkson Potter Publishers
- Publish Date: March 2012
- Dimensions: 10.23 x 8.38 x 0.85 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.22 pounds
- Page Count: 224
BookPage® Reviews
A tavola, per piacere!
Frances Mayes has lived under the Tuscan sun for more than two decades and has opened her home and her heart to us in her best-selling books. Now, with The Tuscan Sun Cookbook, embellished by 150 gorgeous full-color photos, she and her husband Ed invite us into their kitchen to share the treasures of la cucina Toscana. The Mayeses have learned about Tuscan food from the inside out, from the locals—friends, neighbors, restaurateurs, butchers, cheese and winemakers—and they’ve acquired the Tuscan obsession with food and the joy in preparing and sharing it. Most of the recipes (more than 150) are simple and traditional, ranging from antipasti to dolci, with stops for a passel of perfect pasta—including spaghetti with arugula and pancetta and Orecchiette with Shrimp—and classics like Chicken with Artichokes, Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Chickpeas and Green Beans with Black Olives. Whether Frances is writing recipes, invoking the essence of real extra-virgin olive oil or the “liquid sunlight” of a lemon, she infuses everything with her lyric love of this place in the sun.
REGIONAL RICHES
Texas Eats is Robb Walsh’s unabashedly admiring ode to the many cuisines that call Texas home. Our second largest state has more than 30 ethnic groups that have adapted their specialties to the varied Texan landscape, forming a fabulous hodgepodge of gastronomic hybrids. Though Tex-Mex, now internationally known, is the most famous, Walsh highlights many others, like Czech-Tex. He’s organized the book by region, highlighting the signature dishes that each produces, with a side order of local food lore and intriguing history. In the Coastal Bend area we’re treated to the glory of Galveston Oysters—scalloped, grilled, fried, in nachos and on the half shell—spectacular shrimp dishes and the growing influence of the Cajun Invasion. And so it goes, chapter after tempting chapter, from Goulash and Rehwurst to King Ranch Casserole, Texas Sugo, Texas Pho and Spicy Viet-Tex Mayo. Deep in the heart of Texas there’s a marvelous melting pot of multi-ethnic food.
TOP PICK IN COOKBOOKS
Always passionate about cooking, Crescent Dragonwagon is back with Bean by Bean, a super-celebration of beans, always cheap and now chic, too. She’s collected and concocted more than 200 recipes to demonstrate their virtuosity (all tagged for dietary predilection: vegetarian, vegan, omnivorous, etc). Beans can start a meal (check out the Marrakech Melange), star in soups and salads and serve as amiable entrées in curries, casseroles and, of course, chilis, as well as sensational sides, bread and even dessert, as in Red Bean Ice Cream. Crescent starts with Bean Basics—choosing, using, nutrition and cooking methods, including de-gassification. As good a writer as she is a cook, her notes and short essays are fun, informative and brimming with her inimitable enthusiasm.
