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| Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking | 
 enlarge | Authors: Michael Chiarello, Janet Kessel Fletcher, Deborah Jones
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $18.76
You Save: $16.24 (46%)
New (6) Used (7) from $8.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 654122
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 216
ASIN: B000977ULG
Publication Date: September 1, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Michael Chiarello is the real thing--a nice guy and a great cook, enviably telegenic, and privileged to live in the Napa Valley, northern California's Eden, where he's surrounded by the best raw ingredients and the most enthusiastic dinner guests on the subcontinent. On top of all that, he's absolutely generous about sharing his secrets--and his pleasures--with the rest of us, delivering a warm and inviting new world to the home kitchen.Casual Cooking is a big, beautiful, and friendly guide to "cooking smart"--that is, by the author's definition, making the very best meal possible in the time available and with the ingredients you have on hand. His recipes, of the Italian cucina rustica by way of California persuasion, are thorough and clear. Without being patronizing, they leave nothing to guesswork. The flavor, the texture, the moisture, the appearance, the behavior of the dish and its synergy with other foodstuffs are all respectfully and lovingly noted in these pages. "Michael's Notes," in red, share the kind of tips and cautions only a tenured chef and terrific home cook would know. Some credit should no doubt go to Chiarello's mom, at whose elbow he began picking up these nuances and appreciations. The illustrations are plentiful and elegant enough to make this a coffee-table book, the content thorough enough to make this a serious working cookbook. --Schuyler Ingle and Joyce Thompson
Product Description
From Michael Chiarello, author of The Tra Vigne Cookbook, comes a collection of recipes on his favorite subject-and the favorite subject of home cooks everywhere-preparing meals for family and friends. These treasured recipes marry the rich traditions of his Italian culinary heritage with the casual style and fresh flavors of the Wine Country. Each outhwatering dish-such as Tuscan Shrimp with White Beans, Chicken with Rosemary and Lemon Salt, and Italian Fruit Salad with Sta Bene Honey Zabaglione-is sophisticated, yet simple to prepare. Gorgeous color images by award-winning photographer Deborah Jones show dishes that look too good to be this easy! The companion volume to his new 26-part series on public television, Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking is perfect for stress-free weekday meals and spontaneous gatherings of friends and family. It doesn't get any better than this.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
Great Cook April 1, 2008
Always enjoy his show that is shot somewhere in wine country in northern CA. I wish I had a kitchen like that and or a house and land but always enjoy his food and show and the book has many of those recipes and many are not hard just comes down to prepping as he does and making it easier to have great food without going crazy!
A must have in every chef's library February 15, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
One killer recipe after another in this book. Outstanding suggestions and photos, remarkable results. Not always very simple cooking, but simple directions made easy to understand. Wine recommendations come with recipe selections too, very complete and tasty!
 great recipes September 26, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this book because I saw it at my daughter-in-laws and the recipes looked interesting. I have not been disappointed. Just made the zablione with fruit the other night and got raves.
Special recipes... without being exhausting October 30, 2006
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
I've grown to love Michael Chiarello's recipes. In the Goldilocks challenge between making a dish "too simple" or "too much work," time after time Chiarello manages to find the spot that's exactly right. His recipes don't promise instant gratification, in the semi-homemade 30-minute style that's become popular recently. But he's also aware that you have something else to do with your day besides cooking dinner.
Chiarello's background is Italian, so a lot of recipes in this book display that influence -- quite a bit of pasta, for example, and a tendency to use olive oil where others might choose butter. But you'd do better to think of it as Napa-meets-Italian, as his recipes aren't the sort of food that you'll find at the traditional restaurant with a red-checked tablecloth and a candle stuck in a bottle of Chianti. The book lives up to its promise of "casual cooking."
Chiarello encourages you to create a pantry of ingredients that you can call upon whenever needed, and I completely agree with that "good cooking in not much time" philosophy. At first, it might sound as though you need to cook three things just to have the ingredients for a single dish, but the pantry section helps you create items that, later, you'll be able to grab out of the freezer or your spice shelf and put into an "instant" meal. For example, we first made his awesome winter panzanella, which uses homemade croutons in addition to butternut squash and brussels sprouts. The croutons are easy enough -- assuming that you already made his bagna cauda butter. (It's basically anchovies, parsley, and garlic mixed with two sticks of softened butter.) But two days after the salad, we made clams and linguine with more of the bagna cauda butter, and *that* came together in less time than it took to boil the noodles. I still have a half cup of the bagna cauda butter in the freezer, just waiting for a day when I feel like more than a slab-of-steak.
The pantry chapter is 30 pages long (including lots of beautiful photos; this is a great eye-candy cookbook), which includes everything from spiced walnuts to a fennel spice mix. The other chapters are appetizers; eggs & sandwiches; soups & salads; pasta; rice, beans & polenta; fish & shellfish; meat & poultry; vegetables; and sweet things. If you want a collection of fine Italian baking, you'll have to buy another book in addition to this one (you notice I'm assuming you'll buy this in any case), as his dessert choices are on the no-big-deal side of Thursday dinner rather than a big blowout feast. Panna cotta, perhaps, or dried fruit compote with Sambuca.
Many of the recipes are extremely simple, in that "perfect roast chicken" way (his uses rosemary and lemon -- and it came out great) but he isn't afraid to provide a recipes for a sauce that needs to cook for hours. He usually includes menu advice (i.e. serve this with roast pork), and some kind of cook's notes, such as the tip that soaking red onion briefly in sherry vinegar will mellow the raw onion taste.
A fine cookbook. Recommended.
Just Buy It! January 10, 2006
21 out of 21 found this review helpful
We are serious foodies and particularly love all regional Italian cooking. Admit we are bit skeptical of Italian American recipes but after watching MC on TV (finally got a Food Channel on satellite here in Australia) decided to invest in the book. It is brilliant - every recipes tried has scored a "do again" and the pantry items are great. Even a beginner can follow the recipes and experienced cooks will appreciate the layers of flavour that MC is always talking about. Buy this book - you won't be sorry! Off to buy his latest now....
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