Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen Reviews
May 25, 2011 by admin
Filed under Italian food books
Dolce Italiano: Desserts frοm thе Babbo Kitchen
- ISBN13: 9780393061000
- Condition: Nеw
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare ουr books, prices аnd service tο thе competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Scrumptious, easy-tο-mаkе Italian desserts frοm thе hand οf a master.“Follow thе seasons. Keep thе flavors pure аnd straightforward. Uѕе proper уеt simple techniques.” Applying thіѕ aesthetic tο thе Italian tradition, Gina DePalma hаѕ сrеаtеd a cookbook οf thе desserts thаt hаνе wowed diners аt Babbo, Nеw York’s mοѕt coveted reservation ѕіnсе іt opened eight years ago wіth DePalma аѕ
List Price: $ 35.00
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Rocco’s Italian-American
- ISBN13: 9780786868575
- Condition: Nеw
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided οn mοѕt orders. Bυу wіth Confidence! Millions οf books sold!
Thе star οf NBC’s reality ѕhοw Thе Restaurant dishes up thе mouthwatering Italian classics thаt mаdе hіѕ TV ѕhοw аnd eateries ѕο hot. A dеlісіουѕ collection οf timeless family recipes — including Mamma’s Meatballs — frοm culinary superstar Rocco DiSpirito! Superstar chef Rocco DiSpirito mаdе a name fοr himself bу taking flavor whеrе іt hаd never gone before. Bυt thіѕ decorated chef whο blazed through thе Culinary Institute οf America аnd burst onto Nеw York’s fine dining scene — landing
List Price: $ 24.95
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Italy Without Leaving Your Kitchen,
Last week I got a copy of Dolce Italiano for my birthday. Now you have to know a few things, I love reading cookbooks. I also love cooking from cookbooks, but rare is the book that provides excellent reading material, excellent insight, and excellent recipes. For example, I love the recipes in Ina Gartens’ Barefoot Contessa series, but I can read one of her cookbooks in a sitting.
Not true, for Dolce Italiano, Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen. Gina DePalma has crammed so much incredible information, and heartfelt stories into her book, that I’ve been reading it for five days now and still have several more nights of enjoyment left to look forward too (not to mention months of recipes to try). From the introduction which gives you insight into Gina’s background, to the ten Italian ingredients you must know (which section, by the way, I still haven’t finished digesting), even if every recipe was a dud, you’d still have gotten your money’s worth in entertainment and reference.
Now, in all honesty, I’ve only made one recipe, the Fresh Fig Tart, (well two if you count the crust and actual tart as two separate recipes), but man is that good, and easy – so I highly doubt there will be any duds in this book.
Tarts (and pies) have always intimidated me, but this crust came together so easily in the food processor. Then rolling it out, well, once I got over my fear of flouring the surface (I put a scant amount down the first time), it rolled out great on the second try. I followed Gina’s advice and carpet-rolled it over my rolling pin to transfer it to the tart pan, simple. Also, throughout the book Gina gives practical advice on other things too. So like she suggested, I saved the leftover crust from trimming the excess, wrapped it and put it in the freezer. Gina notes that after you make two tarts, you’ll have enough of these left over scraps to do a third (that’s good advice as far as I’m concerned). She also gives advice on ingredients, how to choose, and where to buy some of the more obscure items (though there aren’t too many of these, things like “00″ flour and almond flour, maybe).
The book covers, cookies, cakes, spoon desserts, tarts, ice creams, sorbets and semifreddos, fried desserts, fruit and more (personally, my husband can’t wait to try the fried dough as he’s been searching for something close to his grandma’s lost recipe for years now – we’re hopeful) all as authentically Italian as I’ve ever seen on this side of the Atlantic. Next up though will be the lemony semolina cookies.
So basically, if you love desserts, you need this book. If you love all things Italian you need this book. Or even if you’re like me, where dessert has been a second thought to your meal planning (I’m queen of cookies and washday cobblers), you really need this book.
Enjoy!
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|Close your eyes ——- no, they’re too beautiful!,
The desserts in this book are just incredible; if you close your eyes, you will think you are eating in Italy, but then you will be missing the gorgeous photos in this book.
My little group of friends and I have already made, and eaten, the hazelnut cookies (devoured), the biscotti, and the fig tart! Go, buy this book and try the fig tart while they are in season! ‘Cuz that’s a clue to this book — fresh ingredients, wonderfully prepared.
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|It’s OK,
I have made quite a few recipes from this book and almost each one needed adjusting in bake time or temperature (or both!). It is not my oven; I never have problems with recipes from other sources. Also, some of the directions are vague; if I were not a seasoned baker I would be in a quandary about a few steps here and there. The end result of almost everything I have made turned out pretty terrific, so I can’t complain on that front. I just wish the recipes were better written and better tested. Perhaps next time Ms. DePalma and her editors would be well-advised to employ less editorial interludes and more time spent on instruction in their approach to writing a cookbook.
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|Mixed Review,
I just bought the book and haven’t tried the recipes yet. I’m sure they’re good, because they look like the Italian home cooking I was raised on. To be fair, those holding it up to the standard set by “Taste” are comparing cutting edge restaurant recipes to “just like mama used to make.” That’s apples and oranges.
I find one glaring shortcoming in the book already though, which is that it seems to have been poorly edited (sloppily or hastily assembled). Some recipes list the same ingredients twice. Some names are almost comically misspelled. The dust cover lists Classic Tiramisu – its not in the book. The fish section says “a dozen recipes” – there are only ten. And on and on. They probably wanted this one on the shelves for the holidays, but if I could find these errors in a half-hour, how hard could it have been for them to pick up on the fact that featured recipes aren’t there?
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|Italian-American Culinary Autobiography. Good, not Great,
`Rocco’s Italian American’ by Rocco DiSpirito, his mother, Nicolina DiSpirito, and freelance writer Nina Lalli screams CELEBRITY CHEF Cookbook with the number of pages dedicated to current and historical snapshots of the principle authors, Rocco and Mama. This book was also almost a certainty after the featured role of Mama’s meatballs in the two Mark Burnett `The Restaurant’ reality shows. You just knew that there was a book in the works that featured a recipe for these meatballs.
Rocco’s principle premise for these recipes is that `Italian-American’ cuisine is no less genuine and involves no compromises of `genuine’ Italian cooking because it is not exactly the same as that done in Campagnia or Apulia or Lazio or Tuscany or the Veneto. In fact, Rocco claims to have very little knowledge of native Italian cuisine compared to Marcella Hazan or Food Network colleague Mario Batali. I really have no difficulty whatsoever accepting Rocco’s position here, and, neither to a lot of respected cookbook authors, as such leading names as Lydia Bastianich and John Mariani have written important books on Italian-American cuisine.
Before the book gets to the recipes, it spends the better part of seventy pages giving us brief memoirs from both Mamma and Rocco. As Nicolina can write neither English nor Italian, I am sure that one of Ms. Lalli’s principle jobs was to transcribe and edit Mamma’s oral history. While Mamma concentrates on the truly difficult childhood due to poverty of their family in 1930′s Italy, followed by the premature death of her father, Rocco’s story concentrates on his experiences and enthusiasm for food starting at a very early age. Both stories are interesting, but they lack the kind of spark that enlivens the best memoirs of childhood and the struggle to survive in difficult circumstances. Unlike tales of childhood memories of Jacques Pepin in `The Apprentice’ and of Gennaro Contaldo in `Passione’, there is practically no art and little intellectual interest in these stories. Rocco has done very little to repair the opinion I formed of him in the course of viewing the two `The Restaurant’ shows where he was seen as a self-absorbed, inept manager who probably lied and certainly acted petty in dealings with his financial backer. Not that his backer was a model of probity, Rocco did more to create drama for the camera than he did to rescue the fate of his `Rocco’s on 22nd’ restaurant. He tried to play to the house like Emeril or Wolfgang without the business sense both of these men seem to maintain.
Since there are several important books out on the `Italian-American’ cuisine, it is very easy to evaluate Rocco and Mama’s recipes against an independent standard. The obvious place to start is with Mamma’s meatballs. But, to make this recipe, you need `Mamma’s sauce’ made primarily with Red Pack tomato puree, sugar, chicken stock, garlic, onions, and tomato paste. I confess I find this sauce a weak entry compared to Mario Batali’s basic sauce which uses whole tomatoes, carrots instead of sugar, and no stock, and can be completed in about half the time, 45 instead of 90 minutes. Mamma’s meatballs themselves are very similar to my favorite recipe in `Italian Classics’ by `Cooks Illustrated’ except that instead of chicken stock, it uses buttermilk or yogurt and instead of bread crumbs, it uses torn white bread. Against this standard, I find nothing special in Mamma’s recipe. Rocco’s Puttanesca recipe is also nothing special when measured against `Cooks Illustrated’ and other models I’ve seen. It’s weakest point is that Rocco requires that you use 2 cups of Mama’s Marinara which takes 90 minutes to make plus 20 minutes of cooking for the Puttanesca itself. All other recipes are self-contained, starting from pantry ingredients and often taking little more than 15 minutes from prep to finish instead of Rocco’s 20 minutes of cooking. Rocco’s spaghetti Carbonara is an odd mixture of influences. He is cooking Italian-AMERICAN, but he is insisting on pancetta that I suspect was hard to get even by most poor Italian-Americans in a Queens Latino neighborhood. On the other hand, this is a Roman dish and Rocco is using Parmigiano-Reggiano instead of including the more traditional Pecorino Romano.
On the other hand, Rocco’s recipe for Caesar Salad is about as true to tradition as you can get with raw egg and anchovies and all. I especially liked Rocco’s recipe for Mama’s everyday bread prepared using the well technique in much the same way as one may make fresh pasta. This yeast recipe is both very simple and economical with the use of yeast, unlike Jamie Oliver’s recipe using three packets of yeast. Both are good, Rocco’s is simpler.
Rocco and his designers at publisher Hyperion have chosen a very odd arrangement for the color pictures depicting various cooking techniques, in that they have put them all together in a single `rotogravure’ section in the…
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|ROCCOS ITALIAN-AMERICAN,
The book is like a treasure,it has all the italian dishes that my family has made for years, but never wrote down.All are very easily explained and simple to follow,I am no where a good cook but these receipes sure make me appear to be a professional.Thanks Mama and Rocco for taking the time to put these together. And,the stories make me feel closer to both of you, thanks again for sharing your family memories.This is a definite, for all who love italian cooking. Cynthia M.
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