Cookbook Review: A Tavola!: Recipes and Reflections on Traditional Italian Home Cooking

A Tavola!: Recipes and Reflections on Traditional Italian Home Cooking is the latest cookbook from the famed Culinary Institute of America.

The Culinary Institute of America (with campuses in Hyde Park, NY. and Greystone, CA) is a well-known school for chefs.

Most of us know them from their weekend cooking shows on the public television network.

This latest cookbook is the second book in the The Culinary Institute of America Dining Series.

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A Tavola! explores traditional Italian home cooking. The authors, Gianni Scappin and Vincenzo Lauria, share stories of growing up in Italy and the foods and wines they enjoyed 'a tavola' (at the table).

These are real Italian recipes, the recipes that are still enjoyed around a family dinner table in Italy, although I must say with ingredients like truffle oil, not in the poorer homes.

That being said, A Tavola!: Recipes and Reflections on Traditional Italian Home Cooking is a gorgeous book, filled with beautiful pictures of life in Italy and the recipes featured.

The food pictures are so gorgeous your mouth will water just looking at them. They make you want to get cooking and enjoying them right away.

Some of the delightful recipes in the book include:

• Stuffed Crispy "Ravioli" Snacks
• Parmigiano-Reggiano, Spinach, and Lemon Dumplings in Broth
• Flat Bread with Fig Preserve, Goat Cheese, Arugula, and Truffle Oil
• "Spoon" Ricotta and Nettle Dumplings
• Venetian Cream Fritters and
• Sicilian Cannoli

There is also a great section on making your own homemade pasta, leading you step by step through the process to creating perfect pasta every time.

Although there are a few recipes with ingredients that are more on the gourmet side, most of the recipes in the book are quite accessible for the majority of home cooks.

Overall I would say it is another worthwhile cookbook from The Culinary Institute of America. If you love the world of cooking, and authentic Italian recipes, this cookbook is for you.

About the Authors:

Gianni Scappin is a member of the Federation of Italian Chefs and a lecturing instructor in culinary arts at The Culinary Institute of America. He is co-author of the cookbook Cucina & Famiglia (Morrow, 1999) and was consulting chef for the film Big Night.

Vincenzo Lauria is maître d' instructor in the Ristorante Caterina de' Medici. Mr. Lauria studied at the Instituto Professionale di Stato per Il Commerico Vittorio Veneto in Naples, Italy.

You may also want to look at these other cookbooks from the Culinary Institute of America: