“Giada’s Family Dinners,” by Giada de Laurentiis (Clarkson Potter, $32.50)
The Food Network star with the sparkling smile has produced her second cookbook. Giada de Laurentiis has collected her favorite family recipes, from special-occasion foods to comfort foods. The recipes are easy to prepare and, if you happen to be cooking for a large group, easy to multiply.
One doesn’t necessarily think of Italians as great grillers, but the author dispels any doubts about whether they are with an excellent chapter on grilled foods. There is everything here from appetizers (grilled bread) to salad (grilled lettuces) to Italian s’mores for dessert, with bread substituting for the traditional graham crackers.
This cookbook has some disappointments, however, and is not the unqualified success of her first. The orzo salad was uninspiring, despite the mint, red onion and vinaigrette; the broiled salmon was overwhelmed by its mustard sauce, and the chicken Vesuvio was just plain gloppy.
But the author finishes – just as all her family holiday gatherings do – with a sumptuous collection of desserts, and with those she shines. From a simple chocolate cookie with hazelnuts to an elaborate zuccotto, which is supposed to recall the dome shape of a cathedral, de Laurentiis reveals her gift for pastries, the passion that first led her to cooking school.|Susan Reimer, The Baltimore Sun
