Lidia's family table - Lidia Bastianich

From one of America best-loved and most-admired chefs, an instructive and creative collection of over 200 recipes that bring simple, delicious Italian cooking to the family table,with imaginative ideas for variations and improvisations.

Lidia's Family Table features hundreds offabulous new dishes that will
appeal both to Lidia's loyal following, who have come to rely on her wonderfully
detailed recipes, and to the more adventurous cook ready to experiment.


She welcomes
us to the table with tasty bites from the sea (including home-cured tuna and mackerel),
seasonal salads, and vegetable surprises (Egg-Battered Zucchini Roll-Ups, Sweet Onion
Gratinate).


She reveals the secret of simple make-ahead soup bases, delicious
on their own and easy to embellish for a scrumptious soup that can make a meal.


She opens up the wonderful world of pasta, playing with different shapes, mixing
and matching, and creating sauces while the pasta boils; she teaches us to make fresh
egg pastas, experimenting with healthful ingredients-whole wheat, chestnut, buckwheat,
and barley. And she makes us understand the subtle arts of polenta- and risotto-making
as never before.


She shares her love of vegetables, skillet-cooking some to intensify
their flavor, layering some with yesterday's bread for a lasagna-like gratin, blanketing
a scallop of meat with sauted vegetables, and finishing seasonal greens with the
perfect little sauce.


She introduces us to some lesser-known cuts of meats for
main courses (shoulders, butts, and tongue) and underused, delicious fish (skate
and monkfish), as well as to her family's favorite recipes for chicken and a beautiful
balsamic-glazed roast turkey.


And she explores with us the many ways fruits and
crusts (pie, strudel, cake, and toasted bread) marry and produce delectable homey
desserts to end the meal.

Lidia's warm presence is felt on every page of this book,
explaining the whys and wherefores of what she is doing, and the brilliant photographs
take us right into her home, showing her rolling out pasta with her grandchildren,
bringing in the summer harvest, and sitting around the food-laden family table. As
she makes every meal a celebration, she invites us to do the same, giving us confidence
and joy in the act of cooking.