A16 Food Wine
Starred Review. One of San Francisco’s most popular new restaurants, A16 is devoted to southern Italy’s rustic cuisine and robust wines. This book, by its executive chef and wine director, begins by exploring eight grape-growing areas in the south, from the region’s heart in Campania to mountainous Abruzzo and the isolated island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean. With a dizzying number of wines produced in each area, the focus is wisely kept on the grapes themselves, with eloquent essays on the history and qualities of both classic and less familiar red and white varietals, and food pairing tips as well as recommendations of wine producers. The second half presents some of those foods—peasant cooking like pasta with chunky, chili-spiked sauce, a rabbit mixed grill and, of course, Neapolitan pizza, with A16’s Bay Area location showing in occasional ingredient twists like the tangerines in an arugula salad and the zesty punch of preserved Meyer lemon in a grilled shrimp dish. Executive chef Appleman’s expertise is reflected in a chapter on the pig, including recipes for making pancetta and sausages, which are rather advanced for casual home cooks but, like the rest of the book, make fascinating reading for lovers of Italian food and wine. (Sept.)
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User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Food & Wine Pairing: good book plus interactive pairing tool online at nataliemaclean.com/matcher
The site nataliemaclean.com/matcher has a Drinks Matcher pairing tool online that I found really helpful after reading this book (it’s on Natalie MacLean’s web site, which is just her name and the .com). If you’re into food and wine matching (or pairing food with beer, spirits, cocktails, coffee and tea), then you’ll amazed at the depth of this little interactive tool: there must be thousands of pairings. You can either start with a wine and find food matches, or start with a dish and find drink matches. Check it out.
This book is very well laid out. I especially like chapters three and seven.
5 Stars Fantastic book from a fantastic restaurant
A16 is a gem of a restaurant in San Francisco which takes its name from the highway that cuts across the ankle of Italy’s boot, through Campania and Puglia, and, not surprisingly, places its focus on the food and wines of this region.
This book is part cookbook and part textbook, beautifully written and with stunning photographs of Italy, the restaurant and some of the cooking methods. The section on the regional wines is amazing.
Most of the recipes rely on the ingredients to take center stage. Therefore, anyone following the recipes MUST seek out the highest quality ingredients possible. If you try the burrata antipasto, you will never know how truly heavenly it if you use supermarket burrata, which is grainy in texture and not worth eating. It is definitely worth finding a cheese shop that either carries, or will order, burrata imported from southern Italy or made domestically by the Gioia Cheese Co. in South El Monte, CA. The book includes recipes for making some of the more difficult-to-find ingredients at home where possible.
Great cookbook, great restaurant.
5 Stars Great book
This is a class book, it’s printing, binding, photogrphy are excellent. It is not meant for newby cooks, but has excellent recipes for those who truly appreciate cooking. The tripe recipe was the first one I tried, and it was excellent. The pizza section is fantastic (as are the pizzas at the restaurant), and Shelley’s section on italian wines is a bible on the subject.
5 Stars stunning book!
this book is a must for anyone who loves southern Italian cooking, it contains a wealth of gorgeous recipes and an exhaustive list of southern Italian wines, besides great photos and background information that would be hard to find even in Italy.
5 stars out of 5!
Flavio
5 Stars An incredible, beautiful book
I’ve been waiting for this book to come out and it’s finally here! I write a food blog about Italian cooking and I absolutely love this beautiful book. A16 is an Italian restaurant in San Francisco which prides itself on cooking authentic food from the Campania region of Italy. It is named after the highway that connects Naples to Puglia, the “A-16″. This is the highway from which the owners of the restaurant explored this region of Italy - tasting wines and eating food all along the way.
The book begins with one of the largest and most comprehensive discussions on southern Italian wines, written by wine director Shelley Lindgren. Covering wine from Campania to Sardinia, it’s a full 58 pages! Anyone interested in Italian wines should pick the book up for this section alone. One of the white wines she writes about, Falanghina, intrigued me so much I ran right out and bought a bottle. It was such a nice surprise, a really delicious wine and such a change from the mediocre Chardonnays we have too much of around here.
One of the things I loved about this book is the attention to ingredients - it is not just a book of recipes. Chef Nate Appleman devotes a dozen pages to explaining key ingredients and their uses such as San Marzano tomatoes, salt, bottarga, anchovies, capers, herbs, olive oil, cheeses and vinegars. There is also an interesting section explaining the differences in the flours used in pizza making and the difference it can make in your pizza dough. There is a whole section devoted to pizza making which I found helpful. Chef Appleman talks about visiting the famous pizzeria in Naples, “Da Michele” and discovering the secret to its outstanding pizza dough - addding older, fermented dough to fresh dough to build a more complex flavor. A16 uses a method which replicates this taste - letting the dough proof for 2-3 days (which I’m going to try for our weekly pizza nights at home!)
The recipes in this book range from Antipasti to Desserts, with dishes such as Bruschetta Four Ways, Ricotta Gnocchi, Bucatini with Fava Beans and Pancetta, Chicken Meatballs with Peperonata, Short Ribs alla Genovese, Chard Gratinata with Bread Crumbs and Pistachio and Almond Cake. Each recipe is thoughtfully paired with a wine selection. Nice touch. There are also thoughtful discussions on the techniques of making soffritto, meatballs and fresh pasta.
There is also a comprehensive “Resources” list at the back of the book for hard to find ingredients.
Anyone interested in good food and wine will love this book. The photography is gorgeous.
Eat Smart in Sicily How to Decipher the Menu Know the Market Foods and Embark on a Tasting Adventure Eat Smart in Sicily How to Decipher the Menu Know to Decipher the Menu Know the Market Foods
Eat Smart in Sicily is a travel book that you can enjoy in your kitchen long before you tuck it into your suitcase. Authors Joan Peterson and Marcella Croce survey the rich history of Sicily and its culinary influences, offer tips on finding the best local foods, and include glossaries and restaurant guides that ensure successful dining experiences while visiting. One chapter shares more than 25 authentic recipes that can be savored as a preview or a reminiscence of a remarkable and culturally significant island. –Fra Noi Newspaper, Chicago
Sicily is the melting-pot of the Mediterranean, having Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Arabic, Norman, Germanic and French influences, and sitting down to a meal in Palermo is much more than stopping in at the local fast food franchise. Learning more about the food and history of Sicily will make your visit so much richer. It’s what Epicurean Traveler is all about, and it is where the EAT SMART guides excel.
EAT SMART IN SICILY by Joan Peterson and Marcella Croce, is much more than the translation of a typical Sicilian menu. The first 20 pages of this 145-page guide are devoted to the history of Sicily, with the particular focus on how various conquerors affected (or didn’t affect) the cuisine.
Whether it is an indictment of the way history is taught in college, or a validation of the fine writing provided by the authors, EAT SMART IN SICILY explained more about Sicilian history and its various occupiers, than I had gleaned from reading travel guidebooks, or taking History of Western Civilization in college.
Other sections explain local foods, provinces within Sicily, shopping the food markets of Sicily, helpful phrases to use in a restaurant, and an extensive menu guide. You will also find 28 Sicilian recipes here, so you can get a flavor of the island before you go there.
… if you’re going to Sicily, you need this guide your visit will be the richer for it. Part phrase book, part cookbook, part travel book, each EAT SMART guide is the perfect guide for the Epicurean Traveler. –Scott Clemens, Epicurean-Traveler.com
Sicily is, of course, not only a place of romance, but home to its own particular cuisine, distinct from cuisines of the Italian mainland. To help travelers navigate this culinary landscape, Joan Peterson has added one more culture to her extremely useful EAT SMART series, this time co-authored with native Sicilian Marcella Croce. They provide a culinary history of the island, describing local foods, dishes, recipes, and food markets. The lengthy glossary and menu guide give readers significantly more information than does a general traveler’s dictionary. Anyone who loves travel as much for food as for all its other pleasures, will find this an invaluable guide to a realm where food is such an important part of the life and culture of the people. Highly recommended for public libraries. –Library Journal
User Ratings and Reviews
1 Star A real disappointment!
I bought this book because of the five-star reviews it’s gotten. What a disappointment! The coverage is superficial; the recipes don’t mention ingredients in the list; the prose is simpleminded. The author has written eight other guides in the series, but it seems as if this book is the result of a whirlwind tour. It reads more like an expanded, hastily-done magazine article, with only a few pages on each of the regions and their specialties. A good guidebook’s food section would be a better value; Sicily deserves better! Mary Taylor Simeti’s POMP AND SUSTENANCE is far preferable to this.
5 Stars MOUTHWATERING GUIDE
by Sharon Hudgins, author of The Other Side of Russia: A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East
Joan Peterson has done it again! Teaming up with Sicilian food expert, Marcella Croce, Ms. Peterson has produced another book in her excellent, well written, and informative “Eat Smart” series. This latest edition, “Eat Smart in Sicily” makes you want to reserve a flight to Sicily on the next plane. Following the format of the series, this latest work begins with a historical survey of Sicilian cuisine, from the Greek, Roman, and Arab influences to the Norman and Spanish rulers of this large island that belongs to Italy today. Since Sicily was a crossroad of many cultures, its cuisine reflects the tastes of a variety of people who have landed and lived on its shores.
The section on “Local Sicilian Food” describes the primary ingredients used in Sicilian cooking, followed by a description of the characteristic foods and special dishes of the different provinces of the island. A chapter on “Tastes of Sicily” provides 28 detailed, accurate recipes for Sicilian dishes, from antipasti to desserts.
The second half of the book is a practical guide for travelers to Sicily, with helpful phrases, a menu guide arranged alphabetically (with recommendations for which dishes are classics, local favorites, highly recommended, etc.), and an alphabetical foods-and-flavors guide where you can look up the English-language translations of Sicilian food terms. Eight pages of color photos of Sicilian dishes will make you understand why the authors of this culinary guidebook are so enthusiastic about the island’s cuisine.
Highly recommended (along with all the other books in this series)!
5 Stars One of the best yet in the ‘Eat Smart’ series
If the recipes and color photos in “Eat Smart in Sicily” don’t get you looking at possible airfares to Sicily for a gourmet eating holiday, nothing will.
This latest in the “Eat Smart” series features a photo spread of dishes incorporating fish, eggplant, saffron and beef, as well as concoctions such as a beautifully textured Eastern lamb made of marzipan.
Recipes tell how to make fried artichoke leaves, orange-flavored pork, stuffed mahi-mahi rolls, and Arab-influenced dishes including couscous with fish. Another recipe I plan to try at home is a pasta dish dressed with a pesto of pistachios, almonds and basil — it’s got to be delectable.
At minimum, “Eat Smart in Sicily” will get readers into the kitchen and trying to recreate their own taste of Sicily or visiting Italian restaurants specializing in Sicilian food as well as the more prevalent styles found in U.S. restaurants, based on the cuisines of Naples, Tuscany, Bologna and Florence.
As with others in the “Eat Smart” series, “… in Sicily” is handsomely illustrated and meticulously researched, with a history of the Mediterranean island as it relates to food, noting the contributions of Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Norman French and others.
A chapter on local foods notes the lack historically of meat proteins on the island, the Sicilian interest in wild vegetables, and the local quality of citrus fruits and passion for gelati, now nearly as popular in the United States.
Joan Peterson of Madison, Wisc., the driving force behind other “Eat Smart” guides to Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, India, Peru and other good-eating destinations, joined forces with Sicilian native Marcella Croce for this latest entry in the series. Let’s hope that it makes its way in many suitcases and backpacks belonging to travelers headed to this world crossroads of history and food.
5 Stars Invaluable tips for shopping in both the Sicilian open air food markets as well as their modern supermarkets
Joan Peterson has now authored and/or co-authored nine superbly crafted and incredible informative travel guides with a distinctive culinary orientation. The newest addition to her impressive roster of titles is “Eat Smart In Sicily: How To Decipher The Menu, Know The Market Foods & Embark On A Tasting Adventure” which she co-authored with Sicilian native, journalist and author Marcella Croce. Enhanced for the armchair browser with a section of color photography showcasing dishes, foods, and chefs, “Eat Smart In Sicily” truly lives up to its name and the sterling reputation of the entire ‘Eat Smart’ series. Along with an historical overview focused on the origins of Sicily’s culinary diversity and a quick tour of local Sicilian foods and their variations, travelers are providing with invaluable tips for shopping in both the Sicilian open air food markets as well as their modern supermarkets. With the inclusion of resource lists, helpful phrases, a menu guide, recommended restaurants, and even a thoroughly ‘user friendly’ Menu Guide, “Eat Smart In Sicily” is a ‘must’ for anyone traveling there for either business or pleasure or both!
Francos Kitchen Volume 1
Pairing great food and great wine.
Franco Vessia…international chef, winemaker, restaurateur…brings his famous cuisine to your kitchen with complete and easy-to-follow recipes prepared in real time before your eyes. Franco’s style is “fresh is best”, so each recipe has ingredients sized for a typical dinner with friends and family. With detailed preparation tips and a great sense of humor, Franco takes you from selecting the freshest foods and their preparation through cooking and serving the completed appetizer, entre or dessert. Then, you’ll get Franco’s recommendation for the proper wine to pair with your meal. Nine complete food courses are included on the DVD, As a bonus feature, each video can be downloaded from the DVD for your iPod’, then conveniently viewed in your kitchen.
Professionally videotaped in the custom kitchen at Villa Vessia, the DVD is packed with preparation and serving close-ups that will show you the techniques of a professional chef.
Host Franco Vessia, trained in Italy and Germany, has managed and owned restaurants across the country including his newest, Frankie’s Bistro, in California’s wine region of Temecula. Franco is an accomplished winemaker and owns his vineyard at Villa Vessia. Ciao!
This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com’s standard return policy will apply.
Paderno World Cuisine potato ricer with stainless steel blade and handle 10 5 8
Paderno World Cuisine potato ricer with stainless steel blade and handle 10 5 8
Potato Ricer These simple and efficient manual ricers will quickly smash cooked vegetables.L 10 5/8″
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A16 Food WineA16 Food Wine Starred Review. One of San Francisco’s most popular new restaurants,...
