4 FOOT FOLDING TABLE

The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchens

If you dream of Italy -- and who does not? -- be prepared to fall in love with this extraordinary cookbook. Written by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, author of The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food (winner of both the James Beard and Julia Child/IACP Cookbook-of-the-Year Awards), it is every bit the equal of its celebrated predecessor.
Read its exuberant pages, eat its lusty dishes, and you enter a landscape vibrant with rural life. You are one with the terrain. In some sense, you are home. That, of course, is the miracle of Italy -- no matter where we come from, we want to be a part of it. And the miracle of The Italian Country Table is its ability to take us there.
And what a journey! You will never be as impatient to get into your kitchen as when you are planning a meal from this book. Two hundred recipes, personally collected from home cooks throughout the length and breadth of Italy, will keep calling you back.
Who could resist the "Gatto" di Patate, a mashed-potato "lasagne" from the Neapolitan countryside? Or a Tuscan Mountain Supper of warm beans tossed with an herbed tomato sauce and eaten with tart greens? Or Pasta of the Grape Harvest, a Sicilian dish of grapes, red wine, orange zest, spices, pistachios and linguine? Or Chocolate Polenta Pudding Cake?
Kasper, host of Public Radio's The Splendid Table, is a master teacher who thinks about cooking in a way that is radically distinctive. Her chapter on tomatoes and tomato sauces, a treasure by itself, will change the way you think about them -- and cook them -- forever. Her guide to buying and saucing pasta contains more useful facts than many books that devote themselves to pasta exclusively.
Kasper, the grandchild of Italian immigrants, describes herself as someone with a love of lingering "in places where life changes slowly." This personal book abounds with stories of artisans, farmers and family. It is a portrait of Italian country life.
Where you read The Italian Country Table, cook from it or use it to plan a trip (there is an appendix that lists guest farms, country hotels, restaurants and museums), you have only to turn its pages to be transported to a rustic Italy that few of us know, but all of us long for.
* 16 pages of finished dishes in full color
* 50 black-and-white photographs of country life

Lynne Rossetto Kasper's authoritative first book, The Splendid Table, explored the food and culture of Emilia-Romagna, Italy's culinary heartland. In The Italian Country Table, a collection of 200 regional recipes gathered from farmhouse cooks, Kasper once again provides cultural investigation and authentic, workable recipes. The resulting cookbook-cum-chronicle will appeal to anyone seeking delicious, down-to-earth dishes and an introduction to cherished culinary traditions.
Covering every course of an Italian meal--from antipasti through pasta to vegetables and, of course, dessert--the book weaves recipes with vignettes exploring, for example, Puglia's ritual drying of winter tomatoes. Included also are notes on buying tips, special cooking techniques such as glazing, and discussions of culinary moment, like the nature of a true risotto Milanese. The immediately inviting recipes include such temptations as Mushrooms Stuffed with Radicchio and Asiago, Hot and Spicy Eggplant Soup, Leg of Lamb Glazed with Balsamic and Red Wine, and Espresso Ricotta Cream with Espresso Chocolate Sauce. Kasper also offers a chapter on focaccia, pizza, and bread, as well as menus, shopping sources, and a useful discussion of ingredients. (Taste before you buy, and then pause, she advises. "Aftertaste can reveal how a food's been stored, careless production, or foods going from mature to over the hill.") Concluding with a guide to Italian guest farms, folk life museums, and places to eat and shop, the book is a comprehensive introduction to basic but inspired home cooking and the traditions that both contain and nurture it. --Arthur Boehm

A table set for four. I actually rarely eat on this table. I've had it for over a year and probably sat it maybe 4 or 5 times, and no guests have eaten on it. I tend to entertain in the living room and we all eat elsewhere, but it's pretty no? I love the dinnerware, it's has a blue smoke hue and the goblets are a greyish smoke color. I also love beaded fruits as you can see and those darn things are kinda expensive too! Oh well, the presentation is worth it.

I just realized how posh I am. My goodness, yes, there is such thing as an hors d'?uvre entertainting table. It stores my serving ware, plate rack, at the bottom are my "collection" of cocktail napkins of different patterns. The table also bridges my Italian Chef theme from the kitchen into the attached dining room.

Southern Italian food—from bruschetta and tomato sauce to spaghetti and meatballs—is the most talked about and home cooked food in America. And the area's sleepy hill towns and rocky coastlines have become "it" destinations for in-the-know foodies and travelers from all over the world.

For more than a decade, award-winning cookbook author Arthur Schwartz delved deep into each region of Southern Italy, inviting himself into rustic home kitchens, making friends, and dining at the best local restaurants. Now, in The Southern Italian Table, he presents 130 recipes that celebrate local ingredients and simple flavor combinations behind authentic Southern Italian cuisine.

Follow Schwartz along country roads and city side streets to discover Neapolitan Pizza, Baked Tomato Sauce, and Walnut Pie from Campania, where tomatoes grow better than anywhere else in the world and walnuts ripen sweet and plump in the winter. From the mountainous region of Molise comes hearty Lamb Stew, and from the dry climate and wheat fields of Puglia hail dishes such as Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe and Charcoal-Roasted Artichokes. Calabria's diverse landscape inspires Pasta Disks with Shrimp, Fennel Seed, and Arugula and Lamb Chops with Black Olives. Risotto with Sausage and Smoked Cheese showcases Basilicata's famous pork sausages and scamorza cheese, and Sicily's Salt-Seared Swordfish with Garlic and Mint, Ground Pork Ragu with Chocolate, and classic Apple Cake exemplify the island's variety of culinary influences.


The Southern Italian Table is organized from antipasti (appetizers) to dolci (sweets), and written for the American home cook. With beautiful full-color photography, easy-to-find ingredients, and headnotes and sidebars that put the recipes in historical and cultural context, Arthur Schwartz's new cookbook will become a dog-eared favorite and a friendly guide to la vita italiana.

From The Southern Italian Table: Macaroni with Zucchini and Ricotta

I learned this dish from Gerardina Costanza, one of Cecilia’s amazing cooks and one of the women who assist me in my Cook at Seliano classes. This is a dish of few ingredients and very much about technique. The zucchini is cut two ways, into batons and finely chopped in a food processor. I especially like this sauce on elicone, "helicopters," whose large spirals catch the zucchini strips like no other pasta does. -- Arthur Schwartz

Ingredients

4 medium zucchini (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 small onion
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup finely shredded flat-leaf parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound large macaroni, such as elicone, paccheri, or rigatoni
1 cup ricotta, at room temperature
Grated Parmigiano or pecorino cheese
(Serves six)
Directions
Cut 3 of the zucchini into fine strips, about 3 inches long by 1/4 inch. Chop the fourth very finely in a food processor. Slice the onion in half from root to stem end, then cut into fine strips in the same direction.
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry the zucchini strips until a few are just beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the onion and fry another 3 or 4 minutes, until the onion is wilted but still a little bit crunchy.
Add the grated zucchini and toss well with the already fried vegetables. Toss in the parsley. Fry only 1 minute, seasoning with salt and pepper. Transfer the vegetables to a large serving bowl.
Cook the pasta in at least 4 quarts of boiling water with 2 tablespoons of salt. Drain well and pour the pasta into the bowl with the vegetables. Add the ricotta and toss well.
Serve immediately, passing grated cheese at the table.

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