Romancing the Vine: Life, Love, and Transformation in the Vineyards of Barolo
Author: Alan Tardi
Alan Tardi, former owner of Follonico in New York, describes his life in the Piedmonte district of Italy focusing on the cultivation and harvest of the region's celebrated Barolo wine, and including rare local recipes
Publishers Weekly
In 2002 Tardi closed his New York City restaurant, Follonico, and slowly emigrated to a new life in Castiglione Falletto, a village in Italy's famous Barolo wine region of Piedmont. He was drawn away from a post-September 11 New York (where he still spends part of the year) by the love of a beautiful woman, Ivana; the reassuring natural rhythms of wine making; and the casual culinary splendor of local cooking, which he recounts in 25 recipes featuring regional and personal specialties like Renza's Chicken, Frog-Style and Grape Must Conserve. Tardi spends much of his time working Ivana's family vineyard back to life with her brother Fabrizio, relating his experience tending vineyards and giving folkloric accounts of Barolo's vinicultural history. Although Tardi himself experiences a transformation in the vineyards, readers familiar with food and wine memoirs will likely not encounter anything they haven't read before recipes interspersed with charming anecdotes about local characters, descriptions of age-old customs, conspiratorial asides about how different his lifestyle has become but much like the reliably good food Tardi served for years in his restaurant, his take on the healing powers of old-fashioned hard work and his guidance into his lifestyle is comforting and satisfying. (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
After the dismal fall of 2001, Chef Tardi closed his popular New York restaurant, Follonico, to spend some time in the Piedmont, a Barolo wine-growing region between Turin and Genoa. He found it quite congenial. Tardi describes with artful restraint the colorful local characters and gives effusive attention to the native vintner's art. He scrutinizes a year of the grape, from dormant vine, first growth and pruning through harvest, lovingly describing the transformation from fruit to wine. Care and chemistry, tradition and tasting are accorded proper and learned attention as well. The author seasons his journal with local history. Interspersed are a few dozen local recipes that may not appeal to every reader. One dish calls for calf's brains, sweetbreads, spleen, cockscombs, veal testicles (6 oz.), liver and, along with the frugal offal, a bit of chicken. Near the end, Tardi explains how to make tripe soup, good for lunch, dinner or breakfast. Happily, the prosperous locals no longer enjoy Gatto alla Cacciatora, so their cats may now roam more freely. But if the recipes do not attract, readers may nevertheless want to find a nice bottle of a 2003 Barolo. The author might have gathered some of the grapes in it. Made con amore, a mixture of travelogue, wine primer and cookbook, prepared with skill and served with a dash of measured thought. Agent: David Black/David Black Literary Agency
Book review: Complete Cocktail Maker or Best of France
Korean Cooking
Author: Soon Young Chung
Flavorful and satisfying, Korean cuisine is a tantalizing balance of tastes and textures-fiery peppers provide a counterpoint to mild rice, fragrant sesame oil adds a hint of sweetness to meat and vegetables, and pickled kimchi adds zest with it tanginess and crunch.
Whether you hunger for zesty bean-noodle japchae, rice and vegetable bibimbap or steamed beef spareribs, Korean Cooking will inspire both experienced and beginning chefs to create delectable, traditional dishes of Korea.
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