HERE'S HOW YOU CREATE A KICK-ASS RESTAURANT EMPIRE

I had a blast reading RESTAURANT MAN (Viking; $27.95), Joe Bastianich’s raucous, deeply personal and entertaining memoir of growing up in the family business.  The son of successful restaurateurs, Lidia and Felice Bastianich, young Joe grew up as an entitled punk in Queens, New York. While his parents were running their first restaurant in Queens, and later as Lidia launched her own fabled restaurant and publishing success in Manhattan, young Joe was avoiding the family business, eventually going to college and landing a job on Wall Street. Unhappy in the world of investment banking, went to Italy instead and learned about food and especially Italian wine. It was Italian wine in particular (he owns his own vineyards in Italy, where he makes excellent wines) that drew Joe back to the family business.  When he returned to New York, Joe was ready to open his own restaurant. Becco, was his first venture, and in partnership with his mother, Becco became a success, a great deal of that success was the Becco wine list, with all of the very drinkable wines priced at an affordable $15 a bottle. Bastianich would innovate the concept of wines in his restaurants for the rest of his career. In a few short years, Joe and Mario Batali, then a hot young chef with his own restaurant and a TV show on the Food Network, teamed up to create Babbo, their brilliantly successful Greenwich Village modern Italian restaurant. It would be the start of a fabulous partnership with a string of legendary restaurants in New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Eataly, a multi-million-dollar Italian culinary retail and restaurant enterprise in the heart of Manhattan.

RESTAURANT MAN has often been compared to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, and the similarities are apt. Joe curses and struts up a storm like a sweaty stevedore but above all he is very  funny. Some have been put off by the crude language, the confidence, swagger and style he employs to tell his story. The restaurant business is a rough and tumble world and Joe gives it all the color it deserves. He captures all the magic, hard work and the headaches that go with running an incredibly detailed restaurant empire with a portfolio of multi-starred, critically acclaimed businesses that are the envy of the restaurant world. Joe also settles scores with grandstanding food critics, greedy landlords, and business associations that went bad. He’s been criticized for his salty language and the score settling he indulges in this book.  More power to him. We have all worked with people we didn’t like or found to be dishonest, or worse, mean-spirited. Getting even always feels good, or as I like to say, "Schadenfreude, baby!" Joe Bastianich is not above giving as good as he gets. 

I had a few quibbles. Joe claims it was Babbo that started the popularity of eating at the bar in restaurants in Manhattan. Danny Meyer’s Union Square Café was serving regulars with style, great food and wine years before Babbo opened. I’m still not sure why Joe decided to share his Bill Clinton story, which I felt was a tad bit petty, rather than illuminating. Those are minor stumbles in a remarkable success story in the cutthroat world. Joe is incredibly generous in laying out his own formula for success from finding a location, creating the vision for the kind of restaurants that Batali and he innovated, hiring the teams of designers and contractors that created their vision, as well as the chefs, kitchen and front-of-house waiters, busboys and managers who helped keep his restaurants humming day in and day out. He’s very detailed about the sort of pitfalls to be aware of and to avoid. RESTAURANT MAN is a true, first-generation story of a young man formed from his parent’s immigrant experience, and their success in the new world. Joe Bastianich is articulate and respectful about his parents hard work, and his own rejection and embracement of their traditions as he created his own path. One of the best truisms from Bastianich is his belief that male chefs cook competitively and females cook to nurture--a truly wise statement. He acknowledges both his mother and his father’s own unique contributions to his success. And in true Bourdain style, Joe keeps you turning the pages. 

By the way, I always liked Babbo, and all the other Bastianich/Batali restaurants in New York, but Del Posto has provided me with perhaps the best restaurant experiences of my life and I dined in New York City's best and most acclaimed restaurants for nearly four decades. 

ROOT VEGETABLES FINALLY GET THEIR DUE

My work on The Oregonian Cookbook has kept me away from my blog. That doesn't mean I ignored all the splendid cookbooks that continued to arrive at my door, and in the next few weeks, I'm going to be writing about a lot of them under the heading of...YOU OUGHT TO HAVE THIS COOKBOOK IN YOUR COLLECTION (and give it to a friend for Christmas as well!).  I'm starting with perhaps my favorite cookbook of 2012.

There is a whole new world to explore beyond such popular root vegetables as potatoes, carrots, beets, turnips, radishes and ginger.  Now there's a stupendous resource to this fabulous category with the publication of ROOTS: The Definitive Compendium with More than 225 Recipes by Portland-based cookbook author, Diane Morgan (Chronicle Books; $40.00).  Everything about this new work signals the arrival of something special and significant. Deborah Madison, a great cookbook writer about most-things-vegetable, has written the Foreword. Antonis Achilleos' museum-quality color photos have a physicality and a beauty that is breath-taking. Chronicle Books has generously loaded the book with lots of these photos, and given the whole book a package that gives these gifts from the ground the kind of tribute they have always deserved. Best of all, Diane Morgan has provided delicious, exciting and creative recipes that show off their versatility and deep flavors.

Even five years ago, it would be unthinkable to find burdock root, crosne, galangal, malanga, salsify, and turmeric in supermarkets. Ethnic and farmers markets helped us find our way back to them. Diane Morgan introduces these along with more common varieties, each to its own chapter, covering history and lore, varieties, nutritional information, seasonality, storage, basic uses and preparation.  She then immerses the reader in recipes using each vegetable, some familiar, but more often in surprising and interesting variations.

I don't think I've ever seen wasabi root in my local markets (not that I've ever made much of an effort to find it), but it's a beautiful rhizome and I'm going to investigate further because I love Wasabi Mayonnaise (recipe provided here),  and will even consider making Salmon Hand Rolls with Fresh Wasabi--something I've entrusted entirely to my local favorite sushi chef. I've often ordered Wasabi Mashed Potatoes at New York's popular Union Square Cafe, and now I  can make them locally here in Portland.

Like beet tops, I'm no longer tossing out those pretty green radish tops, which make a spicy and satisfying soup (Morgan suggests using them as soup shots for a "fun and unexpected appetizer"). Smashed Parsley Roots and Potatoes with Crème FraÎche, is both rustic and rich. Brown Sugar-Ginger Ice Cream is an intriguing new flavor to add to my repertoire, and Jewel Sweet Potato Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter Sauce has already made its way to my table (admittedly I'm lazy and used won ton wrappers for these voluptuous pasta pockets). I know dried ground turmeric turns rice yellow and has a mild flavor. Fresh turmeric is used in "Indian, Thai, Cambodian and other Southeast Asian cuisines," writes Diane Morgan, but the fresh stuff can infuse "classic Punjab recipe" of Indian Spiced Cauliflower Potatoes and Peas. We get a lot of halibut in Oregon, so Turmeric-Braised Halibut Steaks with Garlic, is an aromatically impressive use for turmeric and this popular fish.

Of course root vegetables have always been with us, but all too often we forget (and limit our regular use to the same familiar choices) what Europeans, Asians and Latin Americans have always known about these wonderful vegetables. The relatively new revival of the farmers market in cities and towns everywhere has brought many of these forgotten edibles back to us.  ROOTS restores them to their rightful place in our kitchen, and I'm grateful to Diane for rescuing them in a book that is both delightful to read as it is to cook from. This is an absolute must have for all serious cookbook collections. 

CHEF COOKBOOKS: The Agony and the Ecstacy

I’m almost never a fan of cookbooks written by chefs. Too many are invariably glossy and full of color photographs which distract you from the fact that all too often the recipes don’t work. Full of luxury ingredients they often seem out of touch with their readers. It seems to me is the whole point of going out to a restaurant is to eat things you’d never try at home.  Chefs are used to cooking for large numbers of people and it requires a special skill to translate those recipes down to manageable dishes serving four to six. There is clearly an art to writing a recipe that is not always in sync with one’s ability to create a dish.

Let me share some of my chef cookbook experiences.  For a Christmas feast for an Italian family of friends, I prepared an elaborate and preposterously caloric Gatto Napoletano from Mario Batali’s Holiday Food.  This dense and rich potato cake was baked in a springform pan. While it was baking, we all suddenly saw smoke billowing out of the kitchen.  The butter had leaked out of the relatively new springform pan, hit the floor of the oven causing a smoke cloud which set off fire alarms. I knew immediately how to rectify the disaster and chased everyone (including the host) out of the kitchen. I quickly wiped up the bottom of the oven with wet paper towels and wrapped the spring form in a double thickness of aluminum foil to prevent further smoking. Problem solved. Another Mario Batali story. A friend and I purchased his Italian Grill cookbook at the same time. He told me he was going to make the Spit-Roasted Turkey Breast Porchetta-Style, a recipe that I had already decided I had to do. My friend told me the stuffing couldn’t be contained within the boneless turkey breast as the recipe instructed, and it fell apart in his spit. Having experience with Batali’s recipes, I too thought the instructions for tying the stuffed roast were a bit vague, and I ended up tying it horizontally and vertically to contain the stuffing without it falling apart. Last fall, I saw Batali recreate the recipe on his TV show to be cooked in an oven.  I think Batali is a genius chef, but he’s often one of the sloppiest cooks on TV, and he had difficulty assembling this recipe with stuffing falling all over the place in the pan and surrounding counter.  He may have created a delicious recipe, but his technique for its success showed a distinctive lack of caring what the home cook might make of this mess. 

Which brings me to two recent cookbooks published by celebrated chefs.  One I liked a lot. The shortcomings of the other book made me angry.  Let’s start with the book I didn’t like.

THE FAMILY MEAL: Home Cooking with Ferran Adria (Phaidon Press; $29.95; ISBN: 978-0-7148-6253-8) confuses on many levels. It is a collection of staff meals prepared at the legendary and now shuttered elBulli restaurant in Spain.  Ferran Adria, is of course, one of the most celebrated chefs in the world. A reservation at the Michelin 3-star elBulli might take months of stealth planning to secure. Adria’s revolutionary molecular gastronomy captivated diners, chefs, and most of all, an enchanted food press who fell all over themselves extolling the virtue and creativity of his kitchen. He probably deserved it.  Showered with stars and awards, elBulli won the title of World’s Best Restaurant five years running. 

I’m not saying THE FAMILY MEAL is a bad book, merely a sloppy one. The components of each of the three-course menus is within the reach of a good home cook but only in possession of a serious batterie de cuisine.  As I began to read, so many glaring problems surfaced.  For instance:

• In the front matter of the book, there are photographs of essential and elective kitchen equipment the book recommends. Pots, pans, spatulas, a pepper mill, knives, wood spoons, measuring cups are of course, necessary for the basic kitchen, but how many kitchens also sport a pasta machine, a mandolin, a pressure cooker, and electric fruit and vegetable juicer, a hand-held blender, a kitchen blowtorch and electric juicer, whipped cream and soda siphons, elective as these items are and often necessary to the recipes in this book?

• In the very first menu, there is no instruction for the size of the pan to bake the Santiago Cake in, a real no-no for American bakers.  The recipe for Chocolate Cake does specify the right pan to use, so a sloppy oversight.

• The first menu (Caesar Salad, Cheeseburger & Potato Chips, Santiago Cake) begins with photos of each item in a column on one page. Opposite are the names of the three recipes. The next page after that is a double-spread of each recipe’s ingredients arranged mis-en-place-style. To the left is a section on what you will need to buy fresh and what you will need from the pantry and the fridge (presuming you already have them). Then on the right side of this spread are tips for organizing each menu as well as a time line.  Flip the page, and you have tips for the recipes, and a box highlighting the ingredients and their amounts, with columns for serving two, six, twenty and seventy-five persons. This begs the question about the audience for this book:  are we a home cook, a restaurant chef or a caterer?  Frankly this menu with cheese in the salad, cheese for the hamburger is way too heavy-handed on protein when you include the meat and added carbs for croutons in the salad, bread in the burgers, and cake for dessert.

• Each recipe has an overly generous number of photos of the steps of the recipe. Is it necessary to have two photographs showing how to sprinkle cheese on the salad or two photos scattering croutons? There are two photos each for Pasta Bolognese showing the uncooked pasta tumbling into the pot of boiling water and two photos of pasta being drained. 

• For a dish of Lamb with Mustard and Mint, necks are used.  I’ve never seen lamb necks in a supermarket, let alone a butcher shop in the U.S.

• In a recipe for pork loin it is also listed as thin cut pork-loin steaks, a cut not known in the U.S. Thinly cut center cut pork chops is what is called for in this recipe at least in the U.S.

• In order to make the recipe for Yogurt Foam with Strawberries, you must have a syphon with chargers for whipped cream. Ditto the Caramel Foam.  You’ll need a chinois for the Almond Soup with Ice Cream.

• I think I would have enjoyed staff meals at elBulli with their generous ingredients, for there are two recipes here for duck breast, one for osso buco, another using veal cheeks, a stew with crab, and another featuring quail. I checked with a chef friend just to make sure I was correct.  He said he had never eaten a staff meal using these higher end ingredients.  “Pasta” is an overwhelming choice in the staff meals I’ve eaten,” he replied dryly. To be fair, there are lots of budget-conscious recipes here.

• No size or weight is given for eggplant in one recipe, yet another recipe calling for eggplant is specific about its size. 

• There are 28 photos showing how to make a dish called Noodles with Shiitake & Ginger. Dry shiitake mushrooms can be see floating in water in three of them. Is it really necessary to our understanding of how to assemble this dish with separate photos showing oyster sauce, soy sauce and Shaoxing oil added to a bowl?  Better there should have been more care taken with other details listed above. In general there is an excess of photos here and the quality of them isn't very good either. 

• Under the heading of personal preference, there are some bizarre combinations here or some I would classify as old school:  a potato salad with sliced frankfurters, Cauliflower with Béchamel, Bread with Chocolate and Oliver Oil, Sweet Potato with Honey and Cream for dessert.  

THE FAMILY MEAL does have some virtues.  It can be instructive to see the steps in making Chocolate Truffles but overkill when illustrating every single step.  I liked recipes for Beans with Clams, Salt Cod and Vegetable Stew, the Potato Chip Omelet, Catalon Turkey, Almond Cookies, and Mexican Style-Slow-Cooked Pork. I also like the fish recipes, but most of them (whiting, fresh sardines, Japanese-style bream) are not easily available in my part of the Pacific Northwest. Do we really need a recipe from a Spanish chef for cheeseburgers, especially using bread in the meat mixture, which is more suited to a meatball or a meat loaf.  But I wonder why Adria with his cutting-edge reputation for creating some of the most exciting and exacting food in the world would want to take a step backward, offering something that is hardly new, and rather ho-hum in its execution. A more careful edit and some restraint in the use of photos might have helped.  WHAT TO COOK AND HOW TO COOK IT by Jane Hornby (also published by Phaidon) should have been the prototype for the kind of cookbook, which artfully combines photos and text to create a cookbook for those wanting a visual course on the subject. THE FAMILY MEAL’s design is also a letdown being neither glossy nor appealing, despite the inclusion of a staggering 1500 color photos.   By trying to be all things to all everyone it ends up pleasing nobody.

Ferran Adria

On the other hand, Anita Lo’s admirable COOKING WITHOUT BORDERS (Stewart, Tabori and Chang; $35.00; ISBN: 978-1-58479-892-7) has been at the top of my stack of cookbooks to review since late November. I’ve read it cover to cover, dipped into its recipes often, but felt myself feeling guilty.  Anita Lo is one of Manhattan’s most admired chefs. She has fused her multi-cultural background and education with spectacular results. The chef-owner of  the Michelin star-rated restaurant Annisa, has combined her love for travel, and the foods she has encountered to create superb meals that have kept her restaurant very busy. Here was another restaurant cookbook—the kind I’ve been ignoring.

Charlotte Druckman is her attentive writer partner here and together they present recipes that are clearly written, alternate between being challenging and simple, and contain their fair share of luxury ingredients. Yet for every time-consuming or high-ticket-ingredient recipe, such as Rillettes, Terrine of Foie Gras with Plum Wine, Ragout of Lobster Steamer Clams and Corn with Chanterelles and Tarragon, Grilled Lamb Tenderloins with Curried Golden Raisins and a Spinach Timbale of Duck with Raisins and Mustard-Seed Caviar, there is Kimchi Gazpacho with Shrimp, Ceviche of Tilefish with Fig, Anchovy, and Pistachio (yowza, this is simplicity itself!), Crisp Silken Tofu with Black Beans and Ginger, Spicy Grilled Eggplant with Yogurt and Lentils, Grilled Shrimp with Tamarind, Roasted Pepper, and Chile, Steamed Fish with Scallions and Ginger, Slow Cooked Salmon with Smoked Paprika and Savoy Cabbage (which requires a simple but fascinating technique for cooking salmon), Sauteed Fillet of Skate with Caramelized Apples and Chicken Liver, Chicken Wings with Korean Chile, Kohlrabi and Flank Steak Stir-Fry, and My Mother’s BBQ Spareribs.  These recipes amply display Lo’s infinite range as a chef but keep home cooks grounded and delirious over her magical flavor palette.  Every once in a while, Lo offers something I’d rather eat in a restaurant, such as Poppy-Seed Bread-and-Butter Pudding with Meyer Lemon. But she tells you the candied Meyer Lemon Chips are optional, thus becoming a good choice to make at home. 

Anita Lo frankly admits she enjoys chef cookbooks, but she has created a cookbook to be appreciated by both the competitive home chef who lives for a challenge and has the deep pockets for luxury ingredients, as well as the flavor seekers who want to sample something different and delicious and just off their normal culinary path. Women chefs are generally better cookbook writers in my experience and COOKNG WITHOUT BORDERS belongs in the same company as SUNDAY SUPPERS AT LUQUES by Suzanne Goin (Knopf), THE ZUNI CAFÉ COOKBOOK by Judy Rodgers (Norton) and OLIVES & ORANGES by Sara Jenkins and Mindy Fox (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)—exceptional cookbooks by three exceptional chefs.

Try these writers who consistently create wonderful cookbooks for home cooks, including the enormously gifted and visionary Jamie Oliver, the brilliant Deborah Madison, Jacques Pepin--a master and a great teacher, and the sublime and compulsively watchable Lidia Bastianich.   

Sautéed Fillet of Skate with Caramelized Apples and Chicken Liver

My introduction to skate took place when I was a child, during a summer spent on Cape Cod, where, with my older brother and sister, I ran into a fisherman. He was an old salt, his arms deeply tanned and wrinkled from the sun, his beard scraggly and speckled with dried seawater. We asked what he had been catching. “Skate,” he replied. Not familiar with the fish, we inquired further and he told us, “In New England we call skate poor man’s scallops.” He explained that “back in the day,” people on the cape would cut out rounds of the meat as a substitute for scallops because the species shared a common sweetness. What he didn’t tell us is that skate is notoriously difficult to work with when whole. I learned that lesson the hard way and, at the same time, realized the true value of the fish. In the fall of 1999 I had a lot of free time on my hands. Annisa wasn’t open yet and I was just learning the art of angling. My other half at the time, Jen, and I had driven all the way from Manhattan to Shinnecock Canal on Long Island because we heard that striper fishing was particularly good there. After a few hours, and a rough time of it, I landed my skate.

I am by no means squeamish, but this fish broke me. None of my extensive culinary training prepared me for what followed. It was the skate that would not die. It took hours; multiple gashes in the head; a three-and-a-half-hour airless trunk ride from Long Island back home to Manhattan, and a drag-out struggle on the cutting board. We gave up the good fight and decided to let the skate die while we watched TV in the next room. Since that traumatic experience, I have not personally killed another skate, but it’s often on the menu at annisa. It is robust and, yes, sweet-flavored, but to call it “poor man’s scallop” is inaccurate and doesn’t do justice to the distinct character of the fish.

Serves 4

For the sauce:

4 1/2 tablespoons butter

1 onion, finely diced

3 tablespoons brandy

3/4 cup chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon salt

Black pepper to taste

For the apples:

2½ tablespoons neutral-flavored vegetable oil

1. tablespoons butter

1½ cup finely diced Granny Smith apple

2. tablespoons sugar

Pinch of salt

For the chicken livers and skate:

4 tablespoons neutral-flavored vegetable oil

1 tablespoon butter

6 ounces chicken livers, finely diced

4 (5 ½-ounce) fillets skate

Salt and black pepper to taste

Wondra flour

1 lemon, halved

To serve :

1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives

Make the sauce: Heat a saucepan over high heat. Add 3 tablespoons of the butter and swirl. Add the onion and lower the heat to medium. Cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown. Add the brandy, then the stock, and bring to a boil. Cook until reduced by one third, then swirl in the remaining 1 ½ tablespoons butter. Season with the salt and pepper and keep warm.

Make the apples: Heat a saute pan over high heat and add the oil. When just smoking, add the butter and apples and saute for about a minute. Add the sugar and salt and cook until caramelized. Remove to a warm plate.

Make the chicken livers and skate: Heat two large saute pans over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon oil and the butter to one pan and 3 tablespoons oil to the other. On a plate, season the livers and skate with salt and pepper and dust lightly with Wondra. When the oil in the pans is smoking, add the livers to the pan with the butter and the skate, whitest side down, to the other pan. Lower the heat to medium-high and cook until golden brown.

Turn the skate and finish cooking on the other side. Squeeze lemon juice over the fish.

Serve the skate with the sauce, topped with the chicken livers, apples, and chives.


from COOKING WITHOUT BORDERS by Anita Lo with Charlotte Druckman, photo by Lucy Schaeffer, published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang (2001)

I regret not being able to link THE FAMILY MEAL to Amazon.com. I'm still working out the problems it creates when I review multiple titles and the Amazon link arbitrarily fails to allow me to list both titles.  Don't know why it happens.  My apologies. 

CANAL HOUSE PUBLISHING HAS BUILT-IN COLLECTIBLE APPEAL AND THE RECIPES ARE FABULOUS!

CANAL HOUSE COOKING has just published their seventh cookbook.  It's called La Dole Vita (Distributed by Andrews McMeel Publishing; January 2012; $19.95).  Canal House Cooking is the creation of Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer.  A little background:  When I was a young man, I had a long-time subscription to Metropolitan Home magazine.  Ms. Hirscheimer was familiar to me as the food and design editor.  Her work as a founding editor and her wonderful pictures for Saveur magazine in its first decade, made me more familiar with her superb skills.  Her vivid photographs of food have always captured my imagination.  Melissa Hamilton co-founded Hamilton's Grill Room in Lambertville, New Jersey, where she served as executive chef.  She has also held positions at Martha Stewart Living, Cook's Illustrated, and at Saveur as the food editor.

Melissa and Christopher escaped the frenetic world magazine publishing world for a more measured and less stressful existence, living on opposite sides of the Delaware River. Now they cook together each weekday in their rustically attractive New Jersey studio. They have two apartment-sized old school stoves which are set next to each other and this is where all the gorgeous dishes you see in the books are cooked.  Each of these jewel-like cookbooks are devoted to seasonal cooking using fresh ingredients, and are designed for cooks at every level of expertise. Their six previously published Canal House cookbbooks have received ridiculously extravagant praise from all areas of the culinary world.  This isn't hype.  You will want each of these lovely volumes in your collection and in a few years, you're going to find out this is one of the most collectible series ever.

La Dolce Vita came about over a lunch of cannelloni.  "We'd gotten into a long conversation about why Italian food tastes so damn delicious," the authors write in their Introduction. Even though they were adept at cooking Italian food, a decision was made. "We rented a farmhouse in Tuscany--a remote, rustic old stucco and stone house at the end of a gravel road, deep in the folds of vine-covered hills. It had a stone terrace with a long table for dinners outside, a grape arbor, and apple and fig trees loaded with fruit in the garden. There was no phone, TV, or Internet service, just a record player and shelves and shelves of books. It had a spare, simple kitchen with classic waist-high fireplace with a grill.  It was all we had hoped for.  It was our Casa Canale for a month."  They would start their meals and writing in the mornings, then set the table for dinner and head out to look for a place to have lunch. How many of us have imagined doing just this?  Reading about it here is almost as fun as their living it one day at a time in Italy.

The Tuscan farmhouse outdoor table where Hamilton and Hirscheimer ate, drank and 

communed for one month about the their latest Canal House cookbook.  

The recipes are simple. Using ingredients of impeccable freshness and quality, you'll find tramezzini and panini (sandwiches), suppli al telefono (fried rice balls), prosciutto and figs to start the meal, or for a light bite.  There are good soups here, such as Capon broth with Anolini (small stuffed pasta from Parma), then pastas (Spinach Tagliatelle with Simple Tomato Sauce and Ricotta or Gnocchi Verdi, or Risotto Milanese).  A Tummala Di Risotto E Spinachi can best be described as an igloo of rice molded around a savory combination of sausage, spinach and pecorino and baked. It is then un-molded and served in wedges--an impressive as well as delicious presentation whose culinary roots stretch back to the aristocracy of the Italian Renaissance.  Fish follows with a sensual Oil-Poached Swordfish and Branzino with Shrimp and Fennel, or the sublimely easy Squid and Potatoes.  The emphasis with Hamilton and Hirscheimer is always on the integrity of the ingredients. Keeping it simple pays off in huge flavor dividends.

La Dolce Vita continues with sections on poultry (glorious Capon, two ways), Braised Rabbit with Capers and Pancetta, then meat--Braised Lamb and Green Beans, Meatballs with Mint Parsley, some vegetable sides--Peppers in Agrodolche (sweet and sour), and Stuffed Onions Piedmontese. The final pages of this culinary diary of life lived well in Italy are devoted to a few outstanding desserts such as Cheesecake from Rome's Jewish Quarter, and Gelato di Gianduia (the divine combination of toasted  hazelnut and chocolate from Turin).  The photos of the recipes and Italy are expectedly gorgeous.  This and the other books are small--some 124 pages, and while I have many Italian cookbooks in my collection, I've come to the conclusion there is always room for another Italian cookbook.

A superbly rustic Squid and Potatoes

Squid & Potatoes

serves 4

Grilled squid may conjure up images of Sardinia’s sun-drenched Costa Smeralda for some, but it’s a dish we prepare all year long. The Franklin wood-burning stove at the Canal House studio is outfitted with a removable grill that swivels and cantilevers over the fire, so when it gets cold outside, we grill inside, over wood coals. Patty Curtan, our Northern California friend, the exquisite printer, designer, and wonderful cook, grills tender squid from nearby Monterey Bay outside on her Tuscan grill. It’s from her that we learned the art of skewering squid. Instead of using two skewers to keep the squid from spinning around when they’re turned over, she just threads each one crosswise through the wide top of the body, lining them up on the same skewer like laundry drying on a clothesline. Leave it to Patty—so logical, so simple, so beautifully done.

2 pounds cleaned squid

1½ cups extra-virgin olive oil

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

Big pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper

1 onion, halved and sliced lengthwise

2 russet potatoes, peeled and cut crosswise into ¼-inch-thick slices

1 lemon, quartered

Lay the squid in a dish and add 1 cup of the oil, half the garlic, the red pepper flakes, and some salt and pepper. Cover and marinate at room temperature for at least 1 hour and up to 8 hours in the refrigerator.

Put the remaining ½ cup of oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and the remaining garlic, and arrange the potatoes on top. Pour

½ cup water over the potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook until the onions are soft and the potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes.

Prepare a hot charcoal grill. Thread the squid bodies onto metal or wood skewers about an inch from the top and the tentacles similarly through the round body end. Grill the squid over hot coals until opaque and well marked on each side, about 5 minutes. Discard the marinade.

Put the onions and potatoes on a serving platter. Slide the squid off the skewers and arrange them on top. Drizzle a little oil over the squid, season with salt, and serve with lemon wedges.

—From Canal House Cooking, Volume No. 7: La Dolce Vita by Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer/distributed by Andrews McMeel Publishing

Most of the other books in the series have a fabulous chapter called "It's always five o'clock somewhere...", with an appealing mix of cocktails for every season. The books are seasonal with appealing and simple recipes for every time of the year. Hamilton and Hirschheimer's style is spare and unfussy.  Volume six concentrates on foods Hamilton and Hirscheimer find in markets and how that dictates what they will cook. Personable, casual, unpretentious and all delicious, Canal House Cooking has earned its own section in my cookbook library. I can't wait to add more volumes.

You will want to have all the books in this series.  I'm thinking Canal House Cookbooks will be as collectible as the Time-Life cooking series was, or the splendid series of lifestyle cookbooks by Lee Bailey, published in the 80s and early 90s. All are available wherever cookbooks are sold, on Amazon. com, B&N.com, etc.

HERE HERE VEGETABLES LOVERS--THERE'S PLENTY TO LOVE IN PLENTY

There is going to be plenty of drooling from me over PLENTY: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi (2011; $35.00; ISBN: 978-1-4521-0124-8). Yotam Ottolenghi's thrilling valentine to veggies belonged on my year-end best cookbooks of the year survey. I just didn't pay enough attention in time to include it. My bad. Ottolenghi runs four eponymous "haute couture-to-go food shops in London's" poshest neighborhoods. His is also a popular vegetable columnist for the Guardian.  PLENTY's innovative recipes, functional format and vivid color photographs have earned the book lots of accolades and plenty of buzz. At least I didn't get in the book's way!

Green pancakes with lime butter

On just about every page you turn to, the eye is seduced by one tantalizing vegetable recipe after another.  This is definitely not your mother's organic veggie cookbook.  Let's start drooling with the cover image.  Eggplant with buttermilk sauce seems simple enough.  The halved eggplants are baked with some olive oil. Then the tops are slathered with a tangy sauce of buttermilk, Greek yogurt, salt and olive oil and then adorned with tart, jewel-like pomegranate.  Zing. The Arabic fattoush salad (one of my favorites) is deconstructed for a Quinoa and grilled sourdough salad.  Ottolenghi uses sourdough bread instead of pitas. and while it is bulked it up with quinoa, the grain is still delicate. I drool some more. With spinach, cumin and finely sliced green chilies and onions Green pancakes with lime butter, would perk up any brunch.  I love edamame and keep bags of it in my freezer for when I need it for...Warm glass noodles and edamame. Plenty of great Asian flavors are here. Another stunning and creative combination is Fried lima beans with feta, sorrel and sumac. Or Roasted parsnips and sweet potatoes with caper vinaigrette. PLENTY is organized by categories, such as root vegetables, mushrooms, zucchini and other squashes, grains, and pasta, polenta and couscous.

Surprise Tatin

Warm glass noodles and edamame

I can't help myself. I just saw the Surprise tatin photo again. Caramelized potatoes take on more color from low-roasted cherry tomatoes, a little goat cheese, oregano, sugar, and puffed pastry.  I can't wait to make this. Another eye-catcher is a savory Mushroom ragout with poached duck egg. Often a recipe is as simple as it is beautiful, such as Crusted pumpkin wedges with sour cream. Bread crumbs and Parmesan give this dish its crunch. I'll stop now. For really delicious vegetables dishes, I've always turned to Lidia Bastianich, Deborah Madison, or Jamie Oliver, but Yotam Ottolenghi brings a terrific eye to a culinary category of infinite variety and flavors and turns it inside out.  There is a lot of very exciting food in this beautiful book.

Yotam Ottolenghi

SURPRISE TATIN

Filling a tart with potatoes is a real treat for potato lovers.  Serve it with a green salad and you don't need much else. You can use commercial sun-dried tomatoes in oil to save yourself making the oven-dried tomatoes. 

Serves 4

1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes

2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling over the tomatoes and for the pan

salt and black pepper

1 lb new potatoes (skins on)

1 large onion, thinly sliced

3 tbsp sugar

2 tsp butter

3 oregano sprigs

5 oz aged goat cheese, sliced

1 puff pastry sheet, rolled thinly

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F.  Halve the tomatoes and place them skin side-down on the baking sheet. Drizzle over some olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Place in the oven to dry for 45 minutes. 

Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in boiling, salted water for 25 minutes. Drain and let cool. Trim off a bit of the top and the bottom of each potato, then cut into 1-inch thick discs. 

Saute the onion with the oil and some salt for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown. 

Once you've prepared all the vegetables, brush a 9-inch cake pan with oil and line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper. In a small pan cook the sugar and butter on a high heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, to get a semi-dark caramel. Pour the caramel carefully into the cake pan and tilt it to spread the caramel evenly over the bottom. Pick the oregano leaves, tear and scatter on the caramel. 

Lay the potato slices close together, cut-side down on the bottom of the pan. Gently press onion and tomatoes into the gaps and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Spread the slices of goat cheese evenly over the potatoes. Cut a puff pastry disc that is 1 inch larger in diameter  than the pan. Lay the pastry lid over the tart filling and gently tuck the edges down around the potatoes inside the pan. (At this stage you can chill the tart for up to 24 hours.)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Bake the tart for 25 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F and continue baking for 15 minutes, or until the pastry is thoroughly cooked.  Remove from the oven and let settle for 2 minutes only. Hold an inverted plate firmly on top of the pan an carefully but briskly turn them over together, then lift off the pan. Serve the tart hot or warm.