Reviews (234)

Love it!
This book is all I hoped it would be....a delicious collection of wonderful recipes that I am dying to try.Just thumbing through the book made me hungry!

Everyday Italian: 125 simple and Delicious Recipes
Just the cookbook I was looking for. Many wonderful recipes that don't use ingredients not kept in the pantry.

Not one recipe fails!
I am a first time cook and everything is so clear in this book. I have not made one thing that has failed to be delicious. Love you Giada! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cookery, Italian    2. Cooking    3. Cooking / Wine    4. Italian cooking    5. Regional & Ethnic - Italian    6. Cooking / Italian   

Editorial Review

Fans of the Food Network's Read more

Reviews (31)

Recipes you will really make, again and again.
I don't have any of Giada's other cookbooks, so I cannot compare them to this one. What I can say is that this (Giada's Family Dinners) is a cookbook you will actually use, not just look at the pictures. The recipes show how simple and easy to make real Italian food can be. If you love to cook, you'll enjoy working with fresh ingredients to make really tasty main dishes and other recipes. The chicken marsala is a real winner - ditto the winter minestrone. I look forward to working my way through all of the recipes, then back again. Thanks Giada!

Brides and grooms will love this!
One of the biggest trends in wedding registries is signing up for cookbooks. Brides and grooms want to cook together, entertain, host family holidays -- and they want fabulous recipes to impress the in-laws as well. So grab this book for all the newly engaged and newlyweds you know, and give them the gift of preparing for a wonderful, nurturing future together. Giada is a phenomenal guide even for beginning cooks, and this cookbook is a treasure for every engaged couple's kitchen.

review
The cookbook is wonderful.What I was not happy about was not being able to change my order once I hit submit.2 minutes later it said it was being sent for delivery.I hit the wrong delivery service I wanted and was not able to change it 2 minutes later. It was a sunday, I hit 1 day delivery by mistake.Since it was Sunday I ended up not getting the book until Tuesday.I think that there should be some kind of grace period, at least a couple of hours to be able to change or cancel your order. Everything else was great ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cookery, Italian    2. Cooking    3. Cooking / Wine    4. Family    5. Italian Cookery    6. Nutrition    7. Quick and easy cookery    8. Regional & Ethnic - Italian    9. Cooking / Italian   

Reviews (39)

Taste of Home Entertaining picked the perfect Chef to work with, this is wonderful!
Mario Batali entertains us all on Food TV with his incredible knowledge of Italian Cuisine and now we can make these dishes ourselves. I use this when hosting parties because of the vast array of appetizers available.They are easy to make and you can find the products in most grocery stores. Maybe even the Boar!

Great Recipes - If you can find boar
It's a beautiful looking book, with several recipes that look very tasty, but it requires some ingredients that you certainly cannot find at your neighbourhood grocery store. Furthermore, although I am admittedly far from a professional chef, I do not think the recipes are all that easy to make, even if you can find the ingredients. But if you live in Soho, NYC and have access to specialty stores & are a pro in the kitchen, you probably find these recipes great & simple.

Another winner from the American Italian cooking master
If you love to cook and eat Italian food this is the book for you!
Read more

Subjects:  1. Cookery, Italian    2. Cooking    3. Cooking / Wine    4. Italian Cookery    5. Regional & Ethnic - Italian    6. Cooking / Italian   

Editorial Review

First published in 1950 and revised over time, Italy's bestselling culinary "bible," Read more

Reviews (106)

Encyclopedic, simple, advanced
Echoing so many other rave reviews, I have to say this is one of the most exciting cookbooks I've hefted (and it is hefty!) in a long time. It seems like nearly everything that I've eaten in Italy or seen on an Italian menu or read in another Italian cookbook has a straightforward, canonical recipe in this tome. It was like discovery, uncovering secrets again and again. I was breathless turning pages in my favorites sections, and kept returning to the book for days, unable to pull myself away.
A truly great book
There are a great many things to like about this book and very little if anything to dislike.
Definite Buy!
I love this cookbook! i agree with all the other raving reviews about it, everything i've made from it have been easy and delicious ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cooking    2. Cooking / Wine    3. History    4. Italian Cookery    5. Reference    6. Regional & Ethnic - Italian    7. Food & Drink / Cookery    8. Italy   

Reviews (68)

A must read for anyone who aspires to live better
While I find most food writing, particularly autobiographies, tiring to the core this book warmed my jaded little heart.
From Awkward Tourist to French Cooking Fame!
My Life in France is the most entertaining memoir I've read in 2006!It's a winner.
"Splendid"
What an incredible read!If you tire of the endless array of predictable fiction plots based on dysfunctional psychological drama, read this as a tribute to the life of a cultural icon.If you have any bias against French established cultures, please read this - it'll give you a more objective frame of reference from Julia Child's perspective. She not only embraced France but took that passion she found and made it her success.Positive and humorous.I loved it. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography & Autobiography    3. Biography And Autobiography    4. Biography/Autobiography    5. Cookery, French    6. Cooking    7. Cooking / Wine    8. Cooks    9. France    10. French Cookery    11. History    12. Personal Memoirs    13. Regional & Ethnic - French    14. United States    15. Women    16. Cooking / History   

Reviews (39)

A classic indeed...
I got this book recently and I am super-pleased with it. The writing is very enjoyable and the directions on the recipes and added cultural information are superb. This classic belongs in every kitchen, so don't hesitate to purchase it. If your still not convinced here's some good reasons for you to get it:
The French Chef- Julia Child
Full of information, and still relevant for todays cooks, these books should never be out of print.

A Learning Experience
I have always enjoyed cooking, but had never read this book.I thought that traditional French cooking would be difficult to master, high in fat and unnecessarily time-consuming.Also -- I'm an Italian-American -- I thought that Hazan was the last word in cooking.Boy, was I wrong.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Cookery, French    2. Cooking    3. Cooking / Wine    4. French Cookery    5. French cooking    6. Regional & Ethnic - French    7. Cooking / French    8. France    9. National & regional cuisine   

Reviews (19)

Professional Encyclopedia of Haute Cuisine
For this new translation, the dust jacket proudly proclaims 'Here, for the first time, is presented to the English-speaking public the entire translation of...'The copy on these dust jackets is usually just ad copy written by the sales department, and I would not take what it says too seriously. When I was much younger, I had the Crown version of this book as I happily puttered around in my kitchen. I no longer have it, and am unable to verify claims as to the superiority of this new translation over the older version (according to the editorial page, this translation dates to 1979 and is based on the 1921 French edition).
The Chef of Kings
August Escoffier was known as "The king of chefs and the chef of kings". This book is indispensible to anyone who is serious about the culinary arts. Escoffier defined the benchmark for classic French cooking from which most western cooking gets its roots, much like all forms of modern music from rock to country have their roots in classical music.You can find essences of classic French cooking in even the lowliest diner fare.
Classic
I am very annoyed that people who do not have any idea of what this book is, have the audacity to rate it. If you made the mistake of buying this book thinking it was a cookbook that is your own fault! Please don't rate Escoffiers culinary writings based on your own stupidity.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Cooking    2. Cooking / Wine    3. Methods - General    4. Regional & Ethnic - French    5. Cooking / French   

Reviews (4)

great treasure
This is a great treasure.One needs to look at each recipe and try to anticipate how the original plate should have been like.No need to follow the exact instructions as they are only hints.Lot's of fun.

Brilliant, if bulky
High priced absurdity? Hardly. Compared to Adria's or Pierre Gagnaire's texts, Ducasse's tome reminds me of a blown up, bulky version of the French Laundry. There are no foams. There are no overtly experimental techniques; save the odd sous vide recipe.
Serious cooks only need apply -
First and foremost this is a cookbook for serious cooks/chefs. No compromise in the ingredients or the techniques required executing the dishes. The recipes are very detailed and very complicated, and, as with many chef cookbooks, it assumes you know how to cook! Don't be in a hurry to produce the dishes, read many times, absorb the essence/idea of the dish and then you should go!
Read more

Subjects:  1. Cooking    2. Cooking / Wine    3. Methods - Gourmet    4. Regional & Ethnic - French    5. Cooking / French    6. General cookery    7. Reference works   

Subjects:  1. Cooking    2. Cooking / Wine    3. Regional & Ethnic - English, Scottish & Welsh    4. Regional & Ethnic - Italian    5. Cooking / Italian   

Editorial Review

InRead more

Reviews (8)

Great Recipes, impossible ingredients
I can't make most of the recipes in this book without resorting to mailorder from La Tienda.I'm not living in the complete middle of nowhere, but a town of 100,000 is not large enough to stock things like monkfish or spanish chorizo or any of the other dozen essential ingredients Andres uses.He doesn't acknowledge that any of his essentials might be rare, and so never indicates alternative ingredients.
Tasting Tapas
I bought this book because a friend of mine took me to Andres' restaurant in DC while on vacation. I loved the food and wanted to recreate it when I got home.
Great Tapas!
This is a beautiful book and would make a wonderful gift for anyone who likes Tapas or enjoys looking a great cookbooks. Beautifully photographed, you get hungry just looking at it. Everything that I have made is wonderful. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cookery, Spanish    2. Cooking    3. Cooking / Wine    4. Courses & Dishes - Appetizers    5. Regional & Ethnic - Spanish    6. Spanish Cookery    7. Tapas    8. United States    9. Cooking / Spanish   

Editorial Review

Suzanne Goins is the chef-owner of Lucques, an acclaimed Los Angeles restaurant noted for its Sunday meal service. Read more

Reviews (18)

Hard work with a payoff
I bought this book after examining its beautiful pages various times at the bookstore.Last night I cooked from it for the first time.It was a lot of effort, but it did pay off.Last night I made the Deviled Chicken Thighs.My work began Sunday with four trips to different stores to assemble the various necessary ingredients.Yep, two supermarkets, the liquor store, and a bodega (I live in Jersey City, just outside Manhattan).Then the next day was the cooking.Altogether it took me about four hours for that part of the task.Honestly, halfway through I seriously considered giving up.But I persevered, the author's directions are very precise and very clear, so I just concentrated on completing each step.When I was done, my kitchen smelled wonderful (between peals of the smoke alarm set off by the cooking of chicken in oil) and I had a beautiful and delicious meal to serve.So, my thoughts are this . . . don't pick this book if you expect a quick and easy meal to toss onto the table.This is serious cooking and it takes a lot of work and dedication to get through it.But, wow, when you are done, you feel like you've climbed a mountain, and you have this wonderful meal to show for your efforts.Also--now that I have been through the entire recipe, I bet I can do it again, with much less effort and pull it off again more easily.Meaning -- I learned some things about cooking while working my way through it.Not something you can say about a lot of cookbooks.I'm going to put this book aside for a month or so, and then carefully pick a recipe and do it all again.I recommend this book heartily to someone who is interested in cooking and most of all LEARNING.

Great book!Fun to read and inspiring
I really like this book. I has it all!!--beautiful to look at, fun to read, and very inspiring. It is set up nicely too, by season, so you will use the freshest ingredients. For me, having the menus laid out is very helpful. We will have some fabulous meals from this book!

Practical Elegance
This is a gorgeous book and the recipes are simple, quirky, thoughtful and elegant.It's perfect for someone who doesn't have hours so spend in the kitchen, but is looking for something new.It is organized around the seasons, and the emphasis is on market-fresh ingredients.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Cookery    2. Cookery, French    3. Cooking    4. Cooking / Wine    5. Lucques (Restaurant)    6. Regional & Ethnic - French    7. Cooking / French   

Reviews (2)

Simplify your sandwiches the Italian way!
Marold's review is spot on and I recommend and concur with it; it does a salient and well written job of describing this book and its culinary context among other sandwich cookbooks.
Superb Sandwich Book. Buy It Now!
`Simple Italian Sandwiches' by Jennifer and Jason Denton and Kathryn Kellinger contains recipes from the New York City restaurants `ino' and `inoteca', which happen to be a small part of the growing Mario Batali / Joe Bastianich empire of restaurants. They are such a small part that their names are based on the Italian suffix that means `small'.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Cookery, Italian    2. Cooking    3. Cooking / Wine    4. Italian Cookery    5. Methods - Quick & Easy    6. Regional & Ethnic - Italian    7. Sandwiches    8. Cooking / Italian   

Reviews (7)

refreshing
I read this one right after finishing Julia Child's memoirs. What a great decision! I fell in love with Julia then fell in love with Julie. This is a funny book, meant for those interested in cooking and for those who never will put a pan on the fire but just like a good underdog story. You won't get direct recipes (though you will get loads of good advice, like stay away from aspic) but if you're looking for detailed directives you should go to the source anyway and order Mastering the Art of French Cooking. This book is about accomplishing what you set out to do. It sounds simple, but most of us wallow in excuses and self-pity, things Julie tries valiently to avoid.

A fun, irreverent read
I read this book under the old title, too-- still not sure how folks might have mistaked it as a cookbook!Or a "serious" food book.The author has an irreverent, caustic, yet accessible style of writing that I could really relate to and enjoy-- even though I do not at all aspire to ever attempt a similar project in my life.However, it has inspired me to look at my life and perhaps attempt to do something which might not make a bit of practical sense, but may enrich me in unforeseen ways as the Julie/Julia Project did for the author.This woman reminds me of a close friend which helped me to enjoy it all the more.It does seem aimed towards a "younger" crowd.

Fun
This book had its ups and downs, but mostly it was a fun read. The author is young and disillusioned, and she expresses a lot of anger in the book that she was feeling at the time. But I found it to be about living a weird life in New York City at a weird time, doing a weird project. It is certinly not a cookbook as some reviewers have mistaken it for, and it is really not that much about cooking. Be prepaired for angst. I liked it. It also uses a lot of bad language, which I liked at times, but others may not. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Cooking    3. French Cookery    4. Personal Memoirs    5. Regional & Ethnic - French    6. Women    7. Biography & Autobiography / General   

Editorial Review

"As a chef," says Michael Chiarello in Read more

Reviews (5)

Another Success!
Am an admitted Chiarello fan but also a serious, experienced cook.Found this new book to be as good as his last one.Love the pantry recipes - having these extras onhand make the ordinary extraordinary just like he promised.Best section is the side dishes.If you are looking for new dishes for your vegetables, this is a great source.Most are good enough to stand on their own and do in this carnivore's home frequently.If you like things just a little different - buy this book.The recipes are clear, the writing entertaining and your friends & family will be impressed!

Good recipes, beautiful photography and plenty of unique ideas on serving.
To be honest I don't watch many of Michael's shows but the book is beautiful and perfect for those who are constantly on the lookout for entertaining recipes and ideas.
WHERE does The Food Network get these people???
Michael Chiarello needs to stick with the non-Italian dishes because dude doesn't have a clue how to pronounce Italian nor, to compund the problem, does he know the reason why he cooks the Italian dishes.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Cookery, Italian    2. Cooking    3. Cooking / Wine    4. Entertaining    5. Entertaining - General    6. Regional & Ethnic - Italian    7. Southern style    8. Cooking / General    9. Etiquette & entertaining    10. General cookery   

Reviews (1)

Great Portmanteau of Classic Recipes. Buy it!
`Biba's Italy' by notable restauranteur and cookbook writer, Biba Caggiano succeeds because it has established itself in a tidy little niche at the intersection between Italian travel guide, study of regional Italian cooking, and Italian recipe reference.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Cookery, Italian    2. Cooking    3. Cooking / Wine    4. Italian Cookery    5. Regional & Ethnic - Italian    6. Cooking / Ethnic    7. Italy    8. National & regional cuisine   

Editorial Review

Warm and calmly authoritative, Lidia Bastianich has won the trust of many cooks, who also devour her TV shows and books including Read more

Reviews (22)

The desserts in particular are unlike anything I have ever tasted.
The desserts in particular are unlike anything I have ever tasted.
Great book and recipes.
I am a big fan of her show on PBS, I watch it every Saturday morning.I love her style of cooking and I love Italian cuisine so I decided to give it a try and purchased the book.I have tried many of her recipes in the book and although some of them are not to my liking others are just great.I do believe it is just a matter of taste.I like the way she has structured the book and the recipes are easy to follow.If you like Italian food this is a great book to have in your collection.

One of my favorites
I love her magazine and her cookbooks and view on life. Lidia rocks. Its like your grandmother telling you all the little things you need to know to be a great cook. Thanks Lidia...you rock!!! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cookery, Italian    2. Cooking    3. Cooking / Wine    4. Entertaining - General    5. Holiday - General    6. Italian cooking    7. Regional & Ethnic - Italian    8. Cooking / Italian