Rome, At Home : The Spirit of La Cucina Romana in Your Own Kitchen Review

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(More customer reviews)This is the third "la cucina Romana" cookbook I will have reviewed in the last six (6) months. The first two were `Cooking the Roman Way' by David Downie and `In a Roman Kitchen: Timeless Recipes from the Eternal City' by Jo Bettoja. Both have been published within the last two years. A Roman cookbook certainly seems to be a growth industry.
The most important thing to know about this book is that it is more different from the other two titles than these earlier volumes are from one another. `Rome, at Home' by Suzanne Dunaway is a chronicle of the dishes the author cooks in her home in either Rome or Los Angeles. Being only the `Spirit of la cucina Romana' and not the letter of the cuisine, the recipes have a habit of wandering all over the map of Italy. The intent and the content of the two earlier books is to more carefully document Roman dishes as offered by specific restaurante and trattoria in Rome itself.
This book includes almost every classic Roman recipe I know, including
Cipolline in Agrodolce (Little onions in sweet and sour sauce)
Carciofi alla Giudia (Artichokes fried in the Jewish Manner)
Spaghetti alla Carbonara (Spaghetti with Pancetta and Eggs)
Pizza Bianca (White Pizza)
Gnocchi alla Romana (Semolina Dumplings)
Trippa alla Romana (Tripe in Tomato Sauce)
What is surprising is that the book does not include the very Roman dish `Saltimbocca alla Romana'. In its place are several dishes with origins in other parts of Italy such as Ragu Bolognese, Pizza Napoletana, and Ossobuco in Bianco (Milanese).
As this is a book on how the author cooks at home, the recipes follow the well-known Italian culinary practice of buying the very best, freshest ingredients, and doing as little as possible to them to bring them to the table. This is not to say the recipes are overly simple. The author quotes Einstein on this point when he said that the object is to make things as simple as possible, but no simpler. To this end, the author does not skimp on any steps that may surprise conventional wisdom. In a recipe for Caponata (Sweet and Sour Braised Vegetables) for example, she takes the time to salt cut eggplant to draw out some moisture and bitterness. I do sense, however, a few assumptions being made about the cook's knowledge of cooking, as I find no warning against burning the garlic when sautéing, as in the recipe for Spaghetti alla Puttanesca.
The book's contents are organized in the same manner as almost every other traditional Italian cookbook with chapters on:
Antipasti
Primi, with Minestre, Pasta, and Risotto
Secondi, with Pesce (Fish), Pollame (Poultry), Carne (Meat), and Cacciagione (Game)
Contorni (Side Dishes)
Pane, Focaccia, e Pizza (Bread, Flatbread, and Pizza)
Dolci (Sweets)
Note that the author's primary vocation is bread baking, so the chapter on breads is not simply filler.
The glue which holds the book together is the story of how the author originally fell in love with the city of Rome, how she met her husband in Rome, the tempo of her life when in Rome, and her approximation of the world of Roman cuisine based on materials available in southern California. Like many other travelogue cookbooks such as Patricia Wells new `The Provence Cookbook', this volume includes a list of the addresses, telephone numbers, and précis of local Roman eateries and food shops. These bits of lore can put you in the clever little Food Network promo that has a NY foodie ordering food to go from a restaurant in China. The author breathes some Roman air into the anecdotes by giving proverbs, phrases, and words not only in Italian, but also in the local Roman dialect. Thankfully, all local linguistic color is translated into English.
One symptom of how this book is less academically inclined is the fact that the index is definitely not bilingual, unlike the two earlier books. This means that when I tried to find Dunaway's recipe for `Cipolline in Agrodolce', I had to do a little mental translation, as Dunaway's index only had an entry for `Cipolline in sweet and sour sauce'. This probably means absolutely nothing to the American home cook who is not trying to compare three cookbooks. In spite of the liberal seasoning with both the Italian and Roman language, this book is organized entirely in English. All recipes are titled in Italian, but consistently subtitled and indexed in English. Another small lapse may be the absence of eggs, celery, and mint from the author's otherwise very good list of Roman ingredients. Eggs pervade the recipes in many unusual ways and celery and mint are famously abundant Roman ingredients.
This book successfully evokes the sights and smells and sounds of the Roman market in words, with a friendly assist from watercolors of simple Roman scenes and food painted by the author herself. I am no fan of photographs of food in cookbooks. Rampant food styling tricks and fuzzy photography give no guarantee that you are seeing anything close to what you may actually make at home. I would much rather have my saltimbocca recipe back.
With a list price under $30, this is an excellent first book on Italian cookery. The recipes are authentically Italian, based on ingredients available to almost all Americans, wrapped up in a successful evocation of the Roman culinary environment. As such, it is as good as or better than Mario Batali's `Simple Italian Food', a much more appropriate paradigm than the two scholarly treatment of Roman cuisine cited above.
Highly recommended for simple ethnic cooking.

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The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook: Recipes for the Best Pan in Your Kitchen Review

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(More customer reviews)`The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook' by mother and daughter, Sharon Kramis and Julie Kramis Hearne, has roots deep in American culinary tradition based on both the subject and the fact that Kramis senior is a James Beard protégé from Beard's western cooking lessons. Based on the Beard / West Coast connection, the authors get a very nice blurb from senior Beard assistant Marion Cunningham.
This is very much of a `comfort food' rather than a `gourmet' oriented book, with many of the potential weaknesses to which this kind of book can fall prey. The best thing about this book is that in spite of some weaknesses in keeping on message, this is a really nice book to have if you like cooking with cast iron cookware.
The most obvious weakness in the book is that even though both the title and the subtitle, `Recipes for the Best Pan in Your Kitchen' suggest that the book is all about the classic ten (10) to twelve (12) inch skillet, the book actually contains recipes for a wide range of cast iron ware, including Dutch ovens, grills, griddles, popover pans, and special molds.
The thing I miss most in this book is a clear explanation of why the seasoned cast iron skillet is better for some tasks than any other cookware material. My understanding is that well seasoned cast iron has the non-stick advantages of a Teflon coated pan without the weakness of teflon in giving a good sear or good color to sautéed protein. Cast iron is not as responsive to heat changes as copper or aluminum, but this is its strong point when it comes to maintaining heat when you add room temperature or cold food to a hot pan. This advantage is especially good when you are cooking on an electric range, where the power to the heating coil turns on and off to maintain a particular level of heat. Thus, the heat in a pan on an electric element may fluctuate much more widely than the same pot on a gas burner. Another advantage is that cast iron is both virtually indestructible and unwarpable. So, a carefully maintained pan is good for one or more lifetimes, at least. According to Alton Brown's excellent `Gear for Your Kitchen', the down side of cast iron is that it is just a bit brittle so that it can literally shatter if dropped hard enough and it is prone to corrosion. It is also highly susceptible to rust, leading to pitting. And, if your seasoning is less than perfect, an acidic dish can easily leach iron from the pot, leading to an unpleasant taste.
It you limit yourself to the recipes for the skillet, you may also feel that many of the recipes are not necessarily optimized in a cast iron skillet. While the cast iron pan is a real champ in sautéing, browning, and cooking quickbreads such as pancakes, I think it's advantages really do not come into play when you are frying in oil or braising. While the authors briefly allude to enameled ware, I personally find that good enameled cast iron may be as good or better than bare cast iron for braising, especially the French `bistro pans' (flat two handled saute' pan shapes with heavy lids) and marmites (large casseroles with heavy lids). The authors' recipes clearly exceed their material when they give dishes such as a paella for which there are classic pan shapes and materials which are not cast iron.
The recipes in this book are almost all relatively simple, with `just enough' detail to enable an experienced amateur cook to be able to execute them. These are not gourmet recipes. They are `good enough' for easy home cooking. This means the recipes include some probably mistaken cooking lore such as the notion that searing protein seals in moisture. It also includes instructions with almost comically mistaken statements such as the Pecan Sticky Buns recipe which instructs us to put the ingredients into a mixing bowl with a dough hook attachment. This will be easily understood by most to be referring to an electric mixer and attachment, but it demonstrates Sasquatch Books typical weaknesses in copy editing.
On the positive side, I am really willing to accept the authors' opinion that a good cast iron pan is an excellent substitute for a wok for stir fried recipes. A cast iron pan will never go higher than the maximum temperature of the burner, but it will maintain a high temperature better than a thinner pan or a pan of more highly conductive material.
The selection of recipes is wide enough so that this little book will go a long way toward filling several different cooking application niches. The two most useful applications by far are the recipes for breakfast and for outdoor cooking. In fact, the authors would have done well to devoting more space to outdoor cooking, as cooking over an open fire is where cast iron can really come into its own. And, the book does not limit itself to all the conventional classics. Some of the more interesting recipes for breakfast are the Dutch baby and the savory Dutch baby, both of which are dishes that fill the pan. Other dishes that fill the pan such as apple tarts and skillet breads are just the thing to have handy for outdoor cookery.
There are some breads that I would not do in cast iron. I have reservations about an Irish soda bread getting the right kind of heat when baked in a pan with 3 inch high sides. The scones recipe is also a little suspect for the same reasons. The scones recipe is also suspect in that it calls for margarine instead of butter or lard and incorporates this fat with an electric mixer, where most pastry experts would call for the fat to be worked in carefully with the fingers or a pastry cutter.


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The cast-iron skillet is the original gourmet-cooking tool. This cookbook aims to show modern cooks how this inexpensive cast iron tool is the best pan in their kitchen. Fusing new and traditional recipes and gathering farm-fresh produce and ingredients, the authors show cooks how to make delicious food in this versatile skillet. Recipes include: Succulent Seared Pork Chops with Plum-Mustard-Cornichon Sauce; Dutch Baby (puffed pancake with lemon and powdered sugar); Grilled Prosciutto-Wrapped Radicchio; and Warm Pear Upside Down Cake.

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