Cooking with Italian Grandmothers

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Family reunions over The Holidays--that six-week stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year's--bring the promise of festive dinners prepared, should we be so fortunate, by our infintely talented, infinitely wise grandmothers. So it's appropriate that Jessica Theroux's admirable book, Cooking With Italian Grandmothers, arrives just in time.

Theroux spent a year traveling through Italy, meeting and cooking with an even dozen women who shared their kitchens, their recipes and their personal wisdom. The result is a a 296-page work, subtitled "Recipes and Stories from Tuscany to Sicily," that's part travel diary, part photo reportage and part cookbook. (It recently won the Publisher's Weekly award for best Italian cookbok of the year, beating Mario Batali.)

Jessica Theroux photo.jpgTheroux's travels begin in Milano, where Maria teaches her how to make osso buco (she only uses first names) to Lake Como for pumpkin tortelloni, to Piedmont , where Irene introduces her to handmade gnocchetti. At two agriturismos in Tuscany, she learns about rabbits. In Liguria, where they grow lots of basil, she learns how to make pesto genovese.

Driving south, she realizes that the country villages get more crumbled and romantic. There's underwear hanging on the line, something you'd never see in the cities up north. Wild greens and hand-rolled filej pasta with Carluccia in Calabria; her neighbor Raffaela makes bread for the entire town.

When she reaches Sicily, she stays in a village on the slopes of Mount Etna where Maddalena teaches her about caponata, sarde beccafico and panelle. (But who puts orange juice in caponata? Troppo strano.) Finally, feeling trapped in Sicily's "self-protective and guarded" culture, Theroux flees to Ustica, a tiny Mediterranean island an hour's ferry ride from Palermo, where the book's second Maria makes ricotta.

There are 100 recipes in the book, many of them illustrated with mouthwaering photographs. Lots of travel shots as well, low-contrast pictures that look like foggy-day landscapes. and posed shots of each grandmother, seated at the table in her immaculate tiled kitchen.

They don't look particularly "grandmotherly," whatever that might be. Some look like secretaries or school teachers, not like cartoon crones. For that matter, most of them don't even t look particularly old. (Of course, you can be a grandma at 35.) But, writes Theroux, "Grandmothers are the guardians of our collective culture, and their secret and techniques are as relevant now as they were a hundred years ago."

In the end, Theroux comes away with a rich store of images, notes, stories, recipes and memories. She has learned how to listen. You read this book as you would a memoir, for its sense of time and place.

Theroux will be in Seattle early in December for a couple of promotional events:

The first is an authentic Sicilian dinner, Saturday Dec. 4th, at 6:30 PM, prepared by Seattle's reigning Italian grandmother, Mamma Enza Sorrentino, at her restaurant, Enza Cucina Siciliana on Queen Anne (2128 Queen Anne Ave. N.). The price is modest, $35 (not including beverages), or $70 including a copy of the book, and the food is what Sicilian grandmothers would be likely to prepare when company comes: stuffed peppers, hand-rolled gnocchi, a country stew, homemade doughnuts. Details of the menu, along with additional choices, are online; reservations by email or by calling 206 694 0055. Copies of the book will also be available for purchase (regular price is $40, with the dinner $35.)

The second is at The Corson Building in Georgetown (5609 Corson Ave. S.) where Matt Dillon and his crew will prepare a Sunday supper, December 5th, at 6 PM, along the lines of the restaurant's regular family-style dinners. Price is $100, which includes wine with dinner and a copy of the book. Reservations by email or by calling 206 762 3330.

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This page contains a single entry by Cornichon published on November 26, 2010 1:30 PM.

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