Thread: Suggestions

ViLco <villiber@tin.****> wrote:

>Jokes apart, is there any italian cookbook written by an italian cook and
>translated in english? I see many books who get discussed here are italian
>only in the title, while theyr authors are from UK or USA and tend to
>anglicize / americanize recipes and ingredients.
>Try to find a cookbook by an italian author.

I would hazard a guess that some of the Slow Food people have issued
such a cookbook. Their wine guides are translated into English.

And then, there's always Babelfish for doing translation. The
result is usually readable, although not particularly grammatical.

Steve

I have a friend in California who is a real chef. She's a dear, and a hard
worker. They are retired now, and her kitchen is like on TV. Viking,
Dacor, Wolf, you know. BUT THE WOMAN CAN COOK.

Coming from a medical career, she also is very conscious of fats and
cholesterol and everything else that tastes good, sometimes being annoying.
We go visit them a couple of weeks a year, and it is like going to a resort.
Playing golf, eating good on the hilltop patio, driving around in a Ferrari,
Maserati, or Porsche.

I come home and have this thing that I'm going to eat healthier, and learn
to cook like her. Lots of her stuff is very simple, but tasty beyond
description. Lots of it is Italian or European in nature, as they traveled
there a lot.

Are there some starter cookbooks and ways I can get headed in a new
direction away from pork chops and fried potatoes and gravy? I do cook lots
of more complicated stuff, but at times, I just have a mental block when
thinking of what to prepare for dinner, and grab what's easy and I know.

Maybe I'll ask for a particular cookbook this Christmas. Which one?

Steve

"ViLco" ha scritto nel messaggio > SteveB wrote:
>
>> Are there some starter cookbooks and ways I can get headed in a new
>> direction away from pork chops and fried potatoes and gravy?
>
> Try "braciole di maiale" and "patate fritte e fondo bruno", LOL
> Jokes apart, is there any italian cookbook written by an italian cook and
> > translated in english? I see many books who get discussed here are
> italian > only in the title, while theyr authors are from UK or USA and
> tend to > anglicize / americanize recipes and ingredients.
> Try to find a cookbook by an italian author.
> --
> Vilco

It's very difficult to tell Italo-americans from Italians, because people
with Italian roots call themselves Italian. The Silver Spoon was published
in English last year. Not my style, but certainly Italian. Only Hazan was
born in Italy that I know for sure, but unfortunately she did not cook until
after she moved to the US. I have worked off a couple of her recipes, but
they were never great as written. It sounds like Lidia Bastianich comes
closest to cooking fairly close to the old country, but even she sometimes
makes things heavier than they would be here. My kid likes her and tells
all. People think Giada diLaurentis is Italian, but she is the Rachel Ray
of pseudo-Italian home cooking.

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:16:50 -0800, "SteveB" <toquerville@zionvistas>
wrote:

>I have a friend in California who is a real chef. She's a dear, and a hard
>worker. They are retired now, and her kitchen is like on TV. Viking,
>Dacor, Wolf, you know. BUT THE WOMAN CAN COOK.
>
>Coming from a medical career, she also is very conscious of fats and
>cholesterol and everything else that tastes good, sometimes being annoying.
>We go visit them a couple of weeks a year, and it is like going to a resort.
>Playing golf, eating good on the hilltop patio, driving around in a Ferrari,
>Maserati, or Porsche.
>
>I come home and have this thing that I'm going to eat healthier, and learn
>to cook like her. Lots of her stuff is very simple, but tasty beyond
>description. Lots of it is Italian or European in nature, as they traveled
>there a lot.
>
>Are there some starter cookbooks and ways I can get headed in a new
>direction away from pork chops and fried potatoes and gravy? I do cook lots
>of more complicated stuff, but at times, I just have a mental block when
>thinking of what to prepare for dinner, and grab what's easy and I know.
>
>Maybe I'll ask for a particular cookbook this Christmas. Which one?
>
>Steve
>


I have found "Williams-Sonoma: Essentials of Healthful Cooking" a
delightful collection of recipes. It is also easy to find a used copy
searching on half.com or Abe Books.

Boron

"SteveB" <toquerville@zionvistas>

> Are there some starter cookbooks and ways I can get headed in a
> new direction away from pork chops and fried potatoes and gravy?
> I do cook lots of more complicated stuff, but at times, I just
> have a mental block when thinking of what to prepare for dinner,
> and grab what's easy and I know.

For many people (and for me in the past) the biggest barrier
to get past is perhaps the idea that you need to select a
meat or fish main course to base your meal around.

Once you ditch that constraint, a lot more possibilities open up.

Steve

SteveB said...

> Are there some starter cookbooks and ways I can get headed in a new
> direction away from pork chops and fried potatoes and gravy?
>
> Steve


Start visiting the online web recipe sites.

Here's one for starters...

http://www.thegutsygourmet.net/index.html

Andy

Giusi said...

> It sounds like Lidia Bastianich comes
> closest to cooking fairly close to the old country, but even she sometimes
> makes things heavier than they would be here. My kid likes her and tells
> all. People think Giada diLaurentis is Italian, but she is the Rachel Ray
> of pseudo-Italian home cooking.


Except, Lidia eats, whereas Giada and Rachael appear to eat amphetamines.

Andy
Also likes Lidia

Steve Pope" ha scritto nel messaggio
> "SteveB" >
>> Are there some starter cookbooks and ways I can get headed in a>> new
>> direction away from pork chops and fried potatoes and gravy?
> For many people (and for me in the past) the biggest barrier
> to get past is perhaps the idea that you need to select a
> meat or fish main course to base your meal around.
>
> Once you ditch that constraint, a lot more possibilities open up.
>
> Steve

You're right. When I eat out I very often don't order what one thinks of as
a main dish, liking instead to have several appetisers or appetisers and a
vegetable, but when I invite people I have a hard time doing that. I just
don't. If we ate just what we need we'd all be much juicier.

:
I asked the same question some years ago, and was told
by a food professional to think Tuscan, for starters. Their
emphasis on simplicity and freshness provides great
lessons on what really counts in cookery. I went with
Marcella Hazan, a food editor, definitely Italian, but
living in the US. Unlike Jeff Smith (remember him?),
who with his friend Craig Americanized recipes of not
only Italy, but probably half the world, Marcella's
are more legacy-type. Also consider Bugialli.

You have to ask yourself *which* Italian cooking
you want to learn:

1. Trusted legacy originals (some of which, like minestrone)
defy being nailed down with exactitude.

2. Grandma's recipes being made with "evoluaionary"
changes by her descendents, and which the dear old
woman would no longer recognize. True of old recipes
that call for ingredients not readily available in your
area.

3. Modern Italian recipes as they are really cooked by
women who work outside the home, and are pressed
for time. Nowadays you can expect more use of frozen,
canned and otherwise semi-prepared ingredients that
our Grand-mere's never had.

When I was in the czech republic, slovakia, austria and
hungary in October, I noticed that what Americans
consider *real* ethnic food is increasingly hard to find.

Veal cutlets have become chicken-fried steak. Roasted
potatoes come out of a freezer bag and are baked in
convection ovens or (yuk!) deep-fried in almost-fresh
oil. Many breads, muffins, etc now call for "instantized"
flour. Roux is bought in jars rather than being made
fresh. Veggie stock and court-bouillion are made with
Vegeta and water in a microwave. Viennese veal
cutlets (Be'csi szeletek) are breaded in Panko, for Gawd's
sake! The list is endless.

You can see this by comparing Hungarian cookery
as per Elek Magyar compared to that of Gundel,
Geo. Lang or Ilona Horvath.

Hell-fire, rant mode off....

I use I Talismano, Hazan's three books and Bugialli
for reference, then tweak to get the right and bright
flavors. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

HTH

Alex

BTW: Hazan hated the Olive Garden dishes... claimed
they were nowhere near accurate, though OG claims to
have their test kitchens and cooking school in Italy.

"Chemiker" ha scritto nel messaggio > :
> BTW: Hazan hated the Olive Garden dishes... claimed
> they were nowhere near accurate, though OG claims to
> have their test kitchens and cooking school in Italy.

We have McDonald's here, too. Doesn't make them Italian.

"SteveB" <toquerville@zionvistas> wrote in message
news:[email protected]..
>I have a friend in California who is a real chef. She's a dear, and a hard
>worker. They are retired now, and her kitchen is like on TV. Viking,
>Dacor, Wolf, you know. BUT THE WOMAN CAN COOK.
>
> Coming from a medical career, she also is very conscious of fats and
> cholesterol and everything else that tastes good, sometimes being
> annoying. We go visit them a couple of weeks a year, and it is like going
> to a resort. Playing golf, eating good on the hilltop patio, driving
> around in a Ferrari, Maserati, or Porsche.
>
> I come home and have this thing that I'm going to eat healthier, and learn
> to cook like her. Lots of her stuff is very simple, but tasty beyond
> description. Lots of it is Italian or European in nature, as they
> traveled there a lot.
>
> Are there some starter cookbooks and ways I can get headed in a new
> direction away from pork chops and fried potatoes and gravy? I do cook
> lots of more complicated stuff, but at times, I just have a mental block
> when thinking of what to prepare for dinner, and grab what's easy and I
> know.
>
> Maybe I'll ask for a particular cookbook this Christmas. Which one?
>
> Steve

IMHO

The problem you are looking at is quite common, the problem is the eating
habits in Italy or any other country other than the US is followed daily not
just for a meal or 2. The French eat great amounts of animal & other fats
followed by red wine. The Italians eat small amounts of animal fats and
large amounts of carbs with a lot of wine.

Since you are probably going to be eating American style ( a wide variety of
ethnic cuisines) I would suggest you look at any of the AHA *(American Heart
Association) cookbooks and start there. The other option if to go the
opposite way entirely and start on a LOW Carb regime in which case South
Beach or Atkins will do nicely.

Dimitri

Giusi <[email protected]> wrote:

>I eat out I very often don't order what one thinks of as
>a main dish, liking instead to have several appetisers or appetisers and a
>vegetable, but when I invite people I have a hard time doing that. I just
>don't. If we ate just what we need we'd all be much juicier.

I like to not over-order when I eat out, but sometimes I feel
pressured to do so.

My dining partner and I were discussing (but never acutally did)
dinner at a well-thought-of Italian restaurant in London, the
River Cafe. It is a fairly expensive place. I was offering the
opinion that it'd be okay to order an appetizer and pasta each,
along with wine and sharing a dessert -- no secondi. Is that
inappropriate under-ordering? I'm really not sure what the
thinking is on that.

Steve

"Steve Pope" > ha scritto nel messaggio >
Giusi wrote:
>
>>I eat out I very often don't order what one thinks of as
>>a main dish, liking instead to have several appetisers

> My dining partner and I were discussing (but never acutally did)
> dinner at a well-thought-of Italian restaurant in London, the
> River Cafe. It is a fairly expensive place. I was offering the
> opinion that it'd be okay to order an appetizer and pasta each,
> along with wine and sharing a dessert -- no secondi. Is that
> inappropriate under-ordering? I'm really not sure what the
> thinking is on that.
>
> Steve

I order what I want, but honestly haven't tried that at famous restaurants
which are hard to reserve, like River Cafe.

"Chemiker" schrieb :
<snip>
> When I was in the czech republic, slovakia, austria and
> hungary in October, I noticed that what Americans
> consider *real* ethnic food is increasingly hard to find.
>
Hmm, not in Austria.

> Veal cutlets have become chicken-fried steak. Roasted
> potatoes come out of a freezer bag and are baked in
> convection ovens or (yuk!) deep-fried in almost-fresh
> oil. Many breads, muffins, etc now call for "instantized"
> flour. Roux is bought in jars rather than being made
> fresh. Veggie stock and court-bouillion are made with
> Vegeta and water in a microwave. Viennese veal
> cutlets (Be'csi szeletek) are breaded in Panko, for Gawd's
> sake! The list is endless.
>
I take it that the above examples are from Hungary ?
<snip>

Greetings from Salzburg,

Michael Kuettner

Dimitri wrote:

> The problem you are looking at is quite common, the problem is the
> eating habits in Italy or any other country other than the US is
> followed daily not just for a meal or 2. The French eat great amounts
> of animal & other fats followed by red wine. The Italians eat small
> amounts of animal fats and large amounts of carbs with a lot of wine.
>
> Since you are probably going to be eating American style ( a wide
> variety of ethnic cuisines) I would suggest you look at any of the AHA
> *(American Heart Association) cookbooks and start there. The other
> option if to go the opposite way entirely and start on a LOW Carb regime
> in which case South Beach or Atkins will do nicely.

And then there are the Dutch, who eat lots of meat and fat and cheese
and drink beer. My Dutch father in law lived on a diet that would make a
cardiologist squirm, and he was very healthy and active right up until
his death just a few weeks short of 95.

SteveB wrote:
> I have a friend in California who is a real chef. She's a dear, and a hard
> worker. They are retired now, and her kitchen is like on TV. Viking,
> Dacor, Wolf, you know. BUT THE WOMAN CAN COOK.
>
> Coming from a medical career, she also is very conscious of fats and
> cholesterol and everything else that tastes good, sometimes being annoying.
> We go visit them a couple of weeks a year, and it is like going to a resort.
> Playing golf, eating good on the hilltop patio, driving around in a Ferrari,
> Maserati, or Porsche.
>
> I come home and have this thing that I'm going to eat healthier, and learn
> to cook like her. Lots of her stuff is very simple, but tasty beyond
> description. Lots of it is Italian or European in nature, as they traveled
> there a lot.
>
> Are there some starter cookbooks and ways I can get headed in a new
> direction away from pork chops and fried potatoes and gravy? I do cook lots
> of more complicated stuff, but at times, I just have a mental block when
> thinking of what to prepare for dinner, and grab what's easy and I know.
>
> Maybe I'll ask for a particular cookbook this Christmas. Which one?


Check out Graham Kerr's cooking show and cook books. He used to drink a
lot and eat all sorts of good food, but somewhere along the line he
sobered up and started eating healthier foods. His show is nowhere near
as entertaining as it used to be but he passes on a lot of good
information about healthy eating.

Andy wrote:
> Giusi said...
>
>> It sounds like Lidia Bastianich comes
>> closest to cooking fairly close to the old country, but even she sometimes
>> makes things heavier than they would be here. My kid likes her and tells
>> all. People think Giada diLaurentis is Italian, but she is the Rachel Ray
>> of pseudo-Italian home cooking.
>
>
> Except, Lidia eats, whereas Giada and Rachael appear to eat amphetamines.

Personally, I think Giada looks pretty good and Rachel Ray is a little
stocky. It's hard to tell from TV. The camera does add pounds. I always
used to think that Anna Olsen (on Food Network Canada) looked a little
on the meaty side, not fat, but a few extra pounds. I have seen her in
person several times and she looks darned near perfect in real life.

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:27:20 -0500, Dave Smith
<[email protected]> wrote:

>And then there are the Dutch, who eat lots of meat and fat and cheese
>and drink beer. My Dutch father in law lived on a diet that would make a
>cardiologist squirm, and he was very healthy and active right up until
>his death just a few weeks short of 95.

I'm sorry for your loss. Your poor wife is having a particularly bad
year, isn't she?

Carol

--
Change JamesBond to his agent number to reply.

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:16:50 -0800, "SteveB" <toquerville@zionvistas>
wrote:

>I have a friend in California who is a real chef. She's a dear, and a hard
>worker. They are retired now, and her kitchen is like on TV. Viking,
>Dacor, Wolf, you know. BUT THE WOMAN CAN COOK.
>
>Coming from a medical career, she also is very conscious of fats and
>cholesterol and everything else that tastes good, sometimes being annoying.
>We go visit them a couple of weeks a year, and it is like going to a resort.
>Playing golf, eating good on the hilltop patio, driving around in a Ferrari,
>Maserati, or Porsche.
>
>I come home and have this thing that I'm going to eat healthier, and learn
>to cook like her. Lots of her stuff is very simple, but tasty beyond
>description. Lots of it is Italian or European in nature, as they traveled
>there a lot.
>
>Are there some starter cookbooks and ways I can get headed in a new
>direction away from pork chops and fried potatoes and gravy? I do cook lots
>of more complicated stuff, but at times, I just have a mental block when
>thinking of what to prepare for dinner, and grab what's easy and I know.
>
>Maybe I'll ask for a particular cookbook this Christmas. Which one?
>
>Steve
>

For French, you could always go back to Julia's Mastering the Art of
French Cooking (or Escoffier - A Guide to the Fine Art of Cookery).
Or, maybe Madeleine Kamman's The New Making of a Cook: The Art,
Techniques, ans Science of Good Cooking.

Patricia Wells - an American, but located in the south of France for
years - did At Home in Provence, Simply, French (with Joel Robuchon),
and Trattoria.

The Tuscan Year: Life and Food in an Italian Valley by Elizabeth Romer
isn't, strictly speaking, a cookbook. But much of the life of this
Tuscan farm family revolves around the kitchen. There are
descriptions of how to make dishes (more than I had remembered now
that I'm flipping through it), but they're narative descriptions - not
what you'd normally think of with recipes.

As someone else mentioned, abebooks.com is a good source for out of
print books, but you have to careful if you're a book lover.

- Mark