Cooking with Italian Grandmothers: Recipes and Stories from Tuscany to Sicily
*Starred Review* Grandmotherly cooking summons up images that virtually define comfort food. Grandmothers across Italy invited Theroux into their kitchens, allowing her to record a smart selection of unique and utterly appealing dishes that will leave readers of all ethnicities yearning for an Italian grandmother in the family lineage. Without traveling to Italy, cooks can turn to recipes for some extraordinary dishes such as Milanese involtini, thinly sliced steak nestling a stuffing of pork, chicken, beef, and cheese slowly braised in the simplest of tomato sauces. To accompany this, nothing could surpass the elegance of a layered creation of mashed potatoes, prosciutto, and cheeses bound together with eggs. Desserts range from cornmeal cookies through a showstopping hazelnut pastry. Instructions are clear, but experienced cooks may realize that some recipes can be simplified by using a food processor. Those obsessed with authenticity will relish Theroux’s detailed instructions for brewing one’s own walnut liqueur, a two-year endeavor. --Mark Knoblauch