Gelato, Ice Creams and Sorbets by Linda Tubby

A book all about gelato, ice cream and sorbets, what could be bad about that?  Well, nothing.  This book is great.  I especially enjoyed the brief history of Italian ices.  The recipes are clear and simple to follow, too, and the images are lovely. 

The book includes:

• Gelato (25 recipes)
• Iced Drinks (Frullato-Frappe and Granita - 14 recipes)
• Sorbets (21 recipes)
• Iced Desserts (like semifreddo and spumone -16 recipes)
• Cake and Cookies (10 recipes)

 

The author makes it seem so simple, and she even gives instructions for making the recipes with and without using an ice cream making machine.  A extra bonus are some recipes for cakes and cookies that go well with gelato.  In the print book, which is about 75 pages long, there's an index for easy reference. 

Italy has a long history of ice treats, going back to Ancient Roman times, including snowcones and iced wine, and ices like today's sorbets and granita desserts.  Today's standards are all here, along with newer flavors like a Limoncello gelato, and granita with almost and cardamom, and a sorbet made with Vernaccia di San Gimignano wine.

I've made some of the Frullato recipes and loved them.  I suspect this is the sort of book that would make a great Italophile gift this summer!

    

From the book's description:

Gelato, sorbets and ice creams is jam packed full of your classic Italian ice cream recipes. These heart melting favorites will leave you feeling refreshed all year round, as ice cream is not just for the summer.

You will not believe how it all began with Italian ices as this unique recipe books takes you through the historical values of ice cream. But this book takes no prisoners with its strict rules when freezing your scrumptious deserts, ensuring you have the easiest of times in the kitchen. After all, simpler is better when it comes to food preparation.

Brace yourself to be hooked by the range of choice with Iced drinks, sorbets, gelati and mascarpone to tickle your taste buds. No one could ever dream there was so much choice with ice cream treats.

And if that has not filled you to burst, there is a delicious selection of tasty extras and toppings to really make the dish feel complete. Say arrivederci to your old ice cream maker and ciao to easy ice cream making, just about anyone can make these tasty favorites. Whether it’s fun in the sun, or a night in by the fire, these glorious creations are perfect for any occasion.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, the author of the crime-romance novel THE HAGUE, a traditional murder mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Eat, Leo! Eat! by Caroline Adderson and Josee Bisallion

A hyphenated Italian child not wanting to eat his lunch, an Italian grandmother wise with tricks to get the boy to eat, stories to engage the child (and the reader), and beautiful illustrations to engage the eye:  what is there not to like about Eat, Leo! Eat? 

 

There is also a list of 16 Italian words used in the book, with pronunciation guide and meaning for each word.  And a page about pasta, depicting many varieties, giving their name in Italian and providing a pronunciation guide. 

The author portrays a large, extended hyphenated Italian family enjoying a Sunday meal each week, with the matriarch of the family, Nonna, taking the lead with dealing with difficult Leo.  She has the support of the whole family.

Psychology proves better at disciplining Leo than any other method.  He grows to beg for the stories, which are actually the continuation of one story, while he eats lunch with his loving family.

"He's hungry for stories," Babbo jokes.

The setting for the story-with-the-story is Italy.

Things progress to the point where Leo actually helps with the making of Sunday lunch's fresh pasta.  The images offer lots of little details for children to enjoy while the story is being read to them. 

Even the pasta maker is depicted! 

The illustrations fit the text perfectly.  The artist manages to convey the emotions of each character:  the determined orneriness of Leo, the patience of Nonna, the amusement of Mamma...

Once there was a little boy who went to see his nonna.  He went at night.  But at night the world looked so dark and different.  "I wish, I wish," he said, "that there was a light to see by." Then he looked up and what did he see?"

"Stars?" Leo asks.

"Yes, stelline," Nonna says. "A thousand of them. Now mangia, Leo."

From the book's description:

Leo wants no part of sitting down with his family to eat Nonna's big, delizioso lunch every Sunday.  "I'm not hungry," he insists.  Not hungry?  Hmm.  Clever Nonna gets an idea.  She'll use a story to lure Leo to her table.  And since the pasta in her soup, called stelline (little stars), is woven into the story about a boy who journeys to his grandmother's at night, it works.

But again on the following Sunday, Leo doesn't want to eat.  So Nonna expands her story, this time adding some chiancaredde (paving stones), the name of the pasta she's serving that day, to create a path for her character to follow.  Now Leo's hooked.  So much that he begins to badger Nonna every Sunday to reveal more pasta-based details of the story.

And week by week, as Leo's relatives crowd around listening to Nonna and teasing Leo to get him to mangia (eat), he slowly comes to realize just how happy he is to have a place at this table.  

In this heartwarming picture book, award-winning author Caroline Adderson beautifully captures the love and tenderness Leo feels from his grandmother and the rest of his close-knit family through lively, true-to-life dialogue.  The playful, detailed artwork by Josee Bisaillon helps bring all of them to life.

This book offers a perfect framework for lessons exploring the heritage, customs and relationships of families.  The unique story-within-a-story concept, along with the idea that Nonna's tale is being told cumulatively, could easily launch a storytelling assignment.  Additionally, the section on pasta and the list of Italian vocabulary words make a great introduction to foreign cultures through food and language.

 

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com.

Please visit the author's website.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Make Ahead Bread by Donna Currie

The author of Make Ahead Bread educates the reader about yeast.  The organism is very sturdy, it turns out, and altering the temperature in which you store your dough can give you more leeway in when you have to cook it.  The author explains how you can work the bread-making steps around your schedule, rather than be a slave to the dough.

The subtitle of this book is 100 Recipes for Melt-in-Your-Mouth Fresh Bread Every Day.  The recipes are wonderful, actually, and cover all the sorts of bread one could ever dream of making--and savoring straight from the oven!  The book is roughly 200 pages of education, recipes, illustrations and encouragement.

These are the sections in the book:

• Preparation (and ingredients)
• Loaf Breads
• Buns, Ross & Breadsticks
• Flatbreads
• Pastries
• Leftover Bread
• Butters & Spreads

The author's goal is this:

This book takes the process of bread making and fits it into a busy schedule by dividing the process into two or more parts.

The trick to breaking up the bread-making steps is to control the second rising. 

1. Mix and knead the bread, preferably with a stand-mixer with a kneading attachment
2. Let the dough rising to double in size
3. Knead again with the machine and shape as desired
4. Refrigerate the dough to slow the 2nd rising
5. 8 to 24 hours later you can bake the bread at your convenience

The author insists that:

The long, slow rise also improves the flavor and texture of the bread, compared to breads left at room temperature for the final rise before baking.

The text includes instructions for making a sourdough starter.  I should warn the reader, however, from my own experience, that bread making is unpredictable because one works with a live organism:  yeast.  Hard and fast rules don't apply, which the author admits.  The author's experience with yeast is valuable, and she shares it readily.

All the standard breads are here, plus Pita, Tortillas, Focaccia, Naan, and Pizza dough.  The author also instructs us on techniques for various classics like:  dinner roles, knots, and English muffins, crescents, sticky buns, and swirls.  There are some recipes with unusual ingredients, such as Nutella hazelnut-chocolate spread for Nutella Swirl Rolls.

The most unique bread variations are:

• Bacon, Tomato, and Cheddar Loaf
• Oatmeal-Honey-Date Loaf
• Maple, Bacon, and Onion Loaf
• Cheesy Breadstick Twists

Many of the recipes instruct one to roll out the refrigerated dough and immediately cook it, without another rising.  From experience, I know that this will leave the bread less risen than if you let it rise again.

Unusually for a book about bread, this recipe book includes pastries, which fall under a different culinary art, but your get recipes for standards like Danish, Croissants and Turnovers.

A frugal cook, the author provides some recipes, both savory and sweet, that use leftover bread.  The toppings section includes making your own butter and nut butters!  But for me the best tip is instant pectin, which I can't find in the store, but when I do find it, I will buy out the entire stock!

The author encourages readers to squeeze in the time to make bread from scratch by fitting the tasks around one's daily schedule.  While one could make all their own bread, every day, like the author, I think these recipes and techniques are actually the sort of thing that can help cooks make something special for parties and holidays, without keeping them to the kitchen all day long. 

From the book's description:

Two Steps to Breaking Bread.  Make Ahead Bread de-mystifies the bread-baking process with simple recipes and easy-to-follow steps for fresh-from-the-oven bread.  Plus there's an entire chapter devoted to baking ingredients and equipment.  Follow home baker Donna Currie's simple two-step process to baking delicious, fresh, yeast breads:

Step One – mix and knead the dough, then let it rest for 1-2 days while you enjoy life

Step Two – bake.

Yes, it's that simple.

Melt-in-Your-Mouth Breads.  Your home will smell amazing while you bake any of the 100 recipes in Make Ahead Bread, including all of these:

Loaf Breads – Bacon, Tomato and Cheddar Loaf; Maple Sugar and Walnut Loaf Buns, Rolls, Breadsticks – Slider Buns; Cheesy Breadstick Twists Flatbreads – Chicago-style Pan Pizza; Semolina Focaccia Pastries – Breakfast Sausage Danish; Traditional Croissants, and more.

Now, you're never too busy to bake bread! Yeast bread isn't complicated to make, but because it needs time to rise, it’s not always easy to fit it into time available - that’s until now. Make Ahead Bread gives inexperienced bakers and busy home cooks the information you need to make flavorful, freshly baked bread on a schedule that works for you.

Leftovers?  Just in case you have any leftovers, this book also features many recipes for your extra bread like Almond Butter Bread Pudding; Artichoke, Olive and Tomato Strata; and Overnight French Toast.  Plus recipes for scrumptious butters and spreads are included, such as:  Chunky Apple and Cinnamon Spread and Chocolate Butter to name a few.

Make Ahead Bread is published by The Taunton Press.

The Taunton Press evolved out of one man’s love for woodworking and his frustration with the lack of quality information on the craft. To remedy that, he created Fine Woodworking magazine. Since that day in 1975, the company has developed into a 21st century media company providing high-value special-interest information to enthusiasts through a series of successful magazines, books, and digital products.

Direct link to the book at TP

Here are direct links to the book at Amazon.com:

Connect with the author:  Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Website.

Here is simple and clear Focaccia video, an Italian bread that is a great first bread-making effort for newbies:

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Stargazers by Allan Chapman

The subtitle of Stargazers is Galileo, Copernicus, the Telescope and the Church, but that is a bit deceptive, since the book is really a history of astronomy itself.  The author spends the most time, however, discussing the "Astronomical Renaissance" from the year 1500 to 1700.  I requested a review-copy because of the large section of the book us devoted to Galileo Galilei, the famous Italian astronomer. 

The section on Galileo begins about 29% into the book and goes to about 43% of the book.  The whole book covers:

• Aristotle's universe
• Copernicus's revolution
• Tycho Brahe's earth-sun-centric universe
• Kepler's laws of motion
• Galileo Galilei's telescope and visual proof
• The Jesuits missionaries' telescope based astronomy around the world
• Protestants and science
• Francis Bacon and natural philosophy
• The Royal Society and the International Fellowship of Science
• The heavenly clockwork and the power of the scientific method

There are Notes, Further Reading suggestions, a full Index and illustrations throughout the text.

The spread of the study of astronomy was thanks to the Jesuit schools set up to educate young men in thinking critically, and knowing how to argue and defend a proposition.  They were educated in the seven liberal arts, one of which was astronomy. 

But those teachers would have had nothing to teach without the ancient texts that were preserved by religious monastic societies throughout the middle ages:  the ancient scientists provided many instruments, astronomical tables, calculations and observations.

Galileo's drawings of the phases of the moon

And the ancient texts would not have been available to the teachers and students without the printing press, which from 1500 onward provided affordable texts throughout Europe of books that previously were the domain of mainly churches and princes.

It is the printing of the new ideas of the learned that made the astronomical renaissance possible.  Ideas built upon ideas, observations stimulated more theories, which pushed thinkers to desire proof, which lead to more instruments...

Galileo comes alive through the details provided by the author about Galileo's life, upbringing, his world and his public record of arrogance and cruelty.  The Italian was:

...unmystical, hard-headed, argumentative, and possessed of a powerful personality that did not take easily to being contradicted.

There has been much myth-building surrounding Galileo, many stories that may not be true, lots of anecdotes to show the man's greatness, but few reveal his nastiness. 

Frontispiece of Opere Di Galileo Galilei, Published in Bologna in 1656

Traveling around Venice, Padua and other important Italian city-states, the centers of learning during the Renaissance, the author looks at the advancement of astronomical mathematics, engineering, and astronomical tools that Galileo had a hand in.

Galileo was a mathematician and theoretician who used his applied mathematics and engineering skills to create a refracting telescope with special lenses that allowed him to observe the objects in the sky better than anyone before him, and he wrote about his observations of Jupiter, the moon, Saturn's rings, Venus's transit of the sun, and the milky way's stars.

One of the myth-making stories of Galileo experimenting with gravity from the top of the leaning Bell Tower of Pisa

You have to be something of an astronomy fanatic, or a beginning student of astronomy, to read this book.  It is rich with detail, but since it covers such a long period of time some sections are rather cursory.  The curious reader will want to check out the Further Reading suggestions to flesh out the story of astronomy.  But this is an excellent introductory text!

From the book's description:

Stargazers presents a comprehensive history of how leading astronomers, such as Galileo and Copernicus, mapped the stars from 1500AD to around 1700AD.  Building on the work of the Greek and Arabian astrologers before him, church lawyer Nicholas Copernicus proposed the idea of a sun-centred universe.  It was later popularized by Galileo – a brilliant debater whose abrasive style won him many enemies – who presented new evidence, which suggested that the earth moved.  

This thorough examination of the work of both men explores both their achievements and influences. It then traces the impact of their ideas on those who followed them, including Sir Francis Bacon, Dr John Wilkins, Dr Robert Hooke, Sir Isaac Newton and Reverend Dr James Bradley.  

Chapman investigates the Church’s role and its intriguing relationship with the astronomers of the day, many of whom were churchgoers.  He rebuts the popular view that the Church was opposed to the study of astronomy.  In reality, it led the search to discover more.  In 1728, Copernicus’s theory of the moving earth was finally proven by the young Reverend Dr James Bradley.

Frontispiece of Galileo's 'De Systemate Mundi' Depicting Aristotle, Ptolomy, Copernicus, 1635

Here are direct links to Stargazers at Amazon.com:

This is a sanitized version of Galileo's life and work:

Visit the author's page at Gresham College.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

The Night of La Befana, An Italian Legend by Maria Centofanti Pritchard, illus. by Isabella Centofanti Alexander

(All the images from the book are copyrighted)

Looking for a Christmas gift for a hyphenated Italian family or child?  Look no further.  This beautifully illustrated re-telling of the story of La Befana, the visitor all good little Italian children await on the eve of the Epiphany, will be a gift they treasure for years to come.  It is 32 pages long, hard-bound, and includes a dust jacket.  The book's dimensions are 8.5 x 11 inches.

The story of La Befana is a moving one, and the text of this book, written for an adult to read to a small child, is lovingly constructed to convey not just the story, but also the emotions and mysteries of the elderly woman who ends up searching the world over for the Christ Child.

Here are two samples of the text style to give you an idea:

 

The watercolor illustrations that accompany the text are beautifully drawn.  They depict an Italian village scene, and they include many little details to keep the interest of little listeners, even after many re-readings of the story.  Cats, dogs, water fountains, bricks and cobblestones, brooms, clothing, hills in the distance...

This image of the flying Befana with her sack of gifts and lumps of coal is one that all Italian children know.

There are several morals hidden in the story of La Befana.  It is not just a fun fantasy that became a tradition in Italy.  I won't ruin the story for you, but know that it is a story that will remain with children for all their lives, and will be a story they will want to share with their own children, one day.

Here is the book's video trailer, also beautifully made:

The Night of La Befana from Isabella Centofanti on Vimeo.

From the book's description:

Why do Italian children hang up a stocking on the eve of the Epiphany?

The Night of La Befana explains this custom with a retelling of the ancient Italian legend in which a reclusive old woman named Befana is the object of curious whispers.

And for what reason? For sweeping and baking all day long, and singing lullabies to no one at all!

But the appearance of a brilliant star one winter's night changes everything.

Author Maria Centofanti Pritchard and illustrator Isabella Centofanti Alexander are sisters who grew up when life's slower pace invited them to linger long at the dinner table and to listen to their parents tell of their Old World childhood adventures.

To create The Night of La Befana, Maria and Isabella drew deeply on memories: their father's birthplace in Italy, the hard-working villagers there, and their Italian grandmother who baked bread and sang the ninna nanna with joy and passion.

The Night of La Befana unfolds in a simple yet lyrical style. Each watercolor illustration is entirely hand-done, every brush stroke robust and purposeful. Together, text and pictures capture the essence of that strange night when three royally dressed men invite Befana to join their star-led search for the Christ Child, and she stubbornly declines.

What happens when she wakes to regret her decision is why January 5th is The Night of La Befana.

And it is why Italian children hang up a stocking on the eve of the Epiphany.

Readers and listeners of all ages will treasure The Night of La Befana, a story to be read and enjoyed throughout the Christmas season, again and again!

 

The Night of La Befana is published and distributed by the Italian Children's Market, a great resource for gifts for hyphenated Italian children!

At Italian Children's Market we believe it is never too early or too late for a child to learn about his or her heritage.  Our carefully selected books, DVDs, CDs, educational toys, and more, guarantee a friendly introduction to the language and culture of Italy.  To visit our website is to hold your child's hand as together you step through a special door, one that leads to joy and pride in Italian roots.

Direct link to The Night of La Befana's Website

Direct link to The Night of La Befana's page at ICM

(You can purchase the book via either site.)

I have a page at my Italian culture website, Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, at Italophiles.com, dedicated to La Befana.

Direct link to the Italophiles.com page for La Befana

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

101 Places in Italy, A Private Grand Tour by Francis Russell

This very personal guide to Italy is ordered by region, from north to south and west to east.  It harks back to the days of the Grand Tour, when wealthy families would tour Europe's top sights, learn as much as possible about the art, history, architecture and languages as possible, buy some paintings and souvenirs to remind them of the once-in-a-lifetime trip, and then head home, edified and ready to settle down in Britain, Canada, Australia, the U.S.A., ....

The author's voice is conversational and engaging.  He has a perspective that many tourists lack today:  he began traveling through Italy before the age of mass-tourism, when it was still possible to find a cicero, a private Italian guide at a place of interest.  The reminiscences about a time when Italy's treasures were easily accessible and her streets were passable seems like from another century rather than from just a few decades ago.  Such is the newness of the mass migration to enjoy Italy's riches that occurs each year.

Florence's Piazza Santa Trinita during the classical Grand Tour.  Note the space to walk without crashing into cars, scooters or people?  Ah, those were the days. 

The sights selected are personally meaningful to the author, and rigorously selected to give the most pleasure to the most people.  They favor art, churches, buildings, small towns, monasteries, Roman Ruins, and Medieval towns.  The region sections are fronted by simple maps of the region, marked by the general locations of the sights described.  The text is accompanied by many images.  All of Italy's history is covered, from tribal era, to Roman era, to the many conquerors.

The author provides tips on access to the sights, the history, the main attractions, some walking routes, and some quick descriptions of the art.  For art lovers, other sources need to be consulted to provide further details about the many, many pieces of art to be seen at the many churches and museums.  The book seems aimed at people planning a driving-tour of Italy, and is directed at British tourists in particular.

Verona has long haunted the English imagination.

Classical Grand Tour amateur artists studying perspective in the Roman Forum without police, guards, tour groups, or barriers.

Many of the author's descriptions convey his deep love for Italy.

La Verna remains a place of rare beauty, not least in September when the woods are carpeted with pale cyclamen.  It has, too, an unexpected magic when mist shrouds the unpretending buildings.

The author does not shy away from pointing out that modern Italians too often lack appreciation for the beauty that their ancestors reveled in.  Democratization has led to much ugly-fication of Italy.

Like so many ancient cities, Perugia has long outgrown her early walls, and much of the new town is remorselessly ugly.

But even since I first knew it in 1966, the valley below Assisi has been horribly scared by unsightly development.

 

A Grand Tour view of Rome from the Tibur River.

Many of the sights described in the book are virtually impossible to reach during the tourist high season.  The author admits as much, and recommends travel to Italy from November through February, to avoid the crush.  From personal experience, even traveling in winter is not going to overcome the impossibly congested Italian roads in the cities, both large and small.  We gave up on Bergamo, for example, after spending an hour and an half stuck in a traffic jam in the city's periphery in the middle of the day in mid-winter!

The author, however, often paints a nicer picture of Italy than is the reality today.  There is little mention of the traffic, graffiti, pollution, inconveniences of service and opening times, and rudeness of many Italians to tourists.  The author assumes you will put up with it all to view Italy's amazingly vast treasures.  Having been to Italy many times, I actually found the book a wonderful replacement for all the inconveniences and grime and insults.  This is a great book for the armchair traveler!  It even includes a Glossary with Italian, historical, and art terms, and there is a full index.

A Dutch family planning their Grand Tour.

From the book's description:

This personal, and wonderfully well-informed, selection of the most rewarding towns, cities, villages, and individual monuments in Italy is the definitive guidebook for the discerning traveler. The author has been visiting Italy, for study, for work, and for pleasure, for over fifty years, and is the perfect companion for those who want to know about more than the obvious attractions.

As well as comprehensively covering the finest sights in the major tourist centers of Rome, Florence, Venice, and elsewhere, Francis Russell discusses and describes the neglected, or little-known, masterpieces that are still to be found the length and breadth of the Italian peninsula. In a book that will educate and astonish the expert as surely as it will guide and inform the first-time visitor, the author chooses and explores palaces and gardens, city squares and lonely churches, frescoes and altarpieces, great museums and tiny ruins that together provide a richly textured portrait of a country where the history and patterns of civilization lie more thickly than anywhere else on earth.

This book will immeasurably enhance and enrich the visitor's experience of the most visited country in the world, by virtue of its sensitivity, its wisdom, and its deep knowledge, and by means of its vivid, eloquent, and entertaining exposition.Francis Russell was educated at Oxford. He is deputy chairman of Christies and specializes in Old Master and Italian paintings.

The Grand Tour era views of the Colosseum and the Triumphal Arch were very different from today's views!  Animals still grazed in the grass covered Forum.

101 Places in Italy is published by Wilmington Square Press, an imprint of Bitter Lemon Press.

Wilmington Square Press:  A non-fiction list dedicated to writing about culture and society. It includes works on the visual and plastic arts, literature, history, philosophy and travel, by such authors as Francis Russell, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Raymond Tallis.

Books chosen for their originality, their quality and their contribution to knowledge and to debate.

Direct Link to 101 Places in Italy at the Publisher's website

Here are direct links to the book at Amazon.com, as paperback and e-book:

When the original still stood in place in Rome.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Downtown Italian by Campanale, et. al.

Downtown Italian's subtitle is:  Recipes Inspired by Italy, Created in New York's West Village.  The recipes and the wine accompaniments and the cocktail creations are by Joe Campanale, Gabriel Thompson and Katherine Thompson.

The sommelier, chef, and pastry chef have interpreted traditional Italian dishes to make them their own, inspired by both Italy and America.  They serve this fare regularly at four restaurants in New York City:  dell'anima, L'Artusi, L'Apicio, and Anfora.

The book's sections follow the typical Italian feast:

• Notes on Wine
• Aperitivi
• Antipasti
• Primi
• Secondi
• Contorni
• Dolci
• Digestivi

The three authors are not purists; they have a very relaxed attitude to food, and working with food.

The point is to work with the ingredients, treat them right, cook with love, and create something you and everyone else wants to eat right that minute.  Have fun!

The Notes on Wine section is interesting for Italophiles who are also Oenophiles.  The sommelier mentions that there are more than 1000 indigenous grape varieties in Italy.  He describes the wines in terms of their region, grape variety, producer, and the style of wine.  He contributes all the creative Aperitivi, most of which have accompanying photographs.  For each dish in the book, he suggests an accompanying wine.

There are lots of unusual Antipasti, and many salads, which are not a strength in traditional Italian cooking.

The Pasta section offers a wide variety of meat ragus and sauces, which seem quite North African. 

The Secondi are solid, do-able dishes of fish or meat, that seem like satisfying, not fussy, dishes. 

Contorni is the shortest section, but each dish comes with a suggested pairing with a main dish. 

The Dolci are quite work involved, and very sweet compared to their Italian inspirations, so they are more for an American palate. 

There is no recipe list at the front of the book.  The recipe names appear only in the Index, which includes all the ingredients and instructions.

So, what are Recipes Inspired by Italy, Created in New York's West Village like?  Here are some examples:

• Heirloom Tomato and Watermelon Panzanella Salad with Black pepper Bacon and Picked Watermelon Rind
• Rigatoni with Roasted Butternut Squash and Bacon
• Green Tomato Parmesan
• Blueberry Polenta Upside-Down Cake
• Grapefruit-Aperol Granita

Here is a short video showing how they make their homemade ricotta cheese at L'Artusi:

From the book's description:

Three of the most inventive young restaurateurs in New York's vibrant East and West Villages present 100 contemporary Italian-inspired cocktails, antipasti, pastas, main courses and desserts—made approachable for the home cook.

Amid the cobblestoned streets and picturesque brownstones of New York's charming West Village, three dynamic young restaurateurs are creating some of the most inventive and delicious Italian-inspired cuisine in a city world-famous for its Italian food. Now the drinks and dishes that have inspired fanatical loyalty among customers of dell'anima, L'Artusi, L'Apicio and Anfora—including Charred Octopus with Chicories, Impromptu Tiramisu, and a sparking Roasted Orange Negroni Sbagliato—are accessible to home cooks in the first cookbook from executive chef Gabriel Thompson, pastry chef Katherine Thompson, and beverage director Joe Campanale.

Gabe Thompson's antipasti, pastas, main courses, and side dishes emphasize simplicity and deep flavor, using the freshest ingredients, creative seasonings, and the occasional unexpected twist---in such dishes as Sweet Corn Mezzaluna and Chicken al Diavolo. Katherine Thompson's desserts are both inspired and downright homey, running the gamut from a simple and sinful Bittersweet Chocolate Budino to the to-die-for Espresso-Rum Almond Cake with Caramel Sauce, Sea Salt Gelato, and Almond Brittle. And all are paired with thoughtfully chosen wines and ingenious Italian-inspired cocktails—Blame it on the Aperol, anyone?—by Joe Campanale, one of the most knowledgeable young sommeliers in New York City

Downtown Italian is published by Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Known for cutting-edge comics and best-selling humor, cookbook, puzzle, and children's books, Andrews McMeel has a passion for publishing original talent and delighting readers with innovative books and gifts that are worth sharing.

Direct link to Downtown Italian at AMP

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

If you are going to be in New York City, and you wish to visit one of the restaurants run by the authors, visit the online booking site for reservations.  Here is the link to the page on the site that tells you a bit about the restaurants.

Here is a very short video showing the interior of one of the four restaurants:

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.