This is one of my top 5 cookbooks - probably number one or two. he author was executive chef to Julia Child. Great recipes in this book.

But the best part of the cookbook are the memory sections in which she talks about her family, their arrival in this country, and The Hill.

I would loved to have known her grandmother. The pictures in the book are priceless of the newly arrived, the neighborhoods they settled in, the stores they owned.

This book is a loving t More...

Like most people, I don't usually read a cookbook cover to cover, but I spent a lot of time with this one. The author, Nancy Verde Barr, a third-generation Italian, offers some great recipes she learned from her grandmother.

One of the recipes in the book, called "Ziti in the Manner of San Giovanni," has become such a favorite of mine that I've made it more times than I can count. I simply call it "Sage Pasta." I never thought pasta with prosciutto, walnuts and fre More...

How to cook healthy from being soooo poor!! Love the immigrant stories and how their kitchens were remembered with such fondness and love.

Good stuff. Interesting historic vignettes and the recipes are pretty close to what I learned at the business end of one of those well-seasoned wooden spoons from the card-playin', moo-moo wearin', church-goin', kid-lovin' Italian mamadelles in the fam.

I don't often cook out of cookbooks, but this is one of the exceptions to the rule. Recommended.