Hometown talent has hook on fall cookbooks
Chicago culinarians, get thee to the bookstore. The fall crop of cookbooks includes several by Chicago authors that should keep you busy and well-fed through the holidays.
(Jean Lachat/Sun-Times)
If you can get past the cover of 250 True Italian Pasta Dishes (Robert Rose, $29.95), which screams “bargain bin,” you’ll be glad you did.
Quartino chef John Coletta’s cookbook, written with Nancy Ross Ryan, is an impressive collection of recipes, knowledge and advice from Coletta, who lets the pasta and ingredients speak for themselves at his River North restaurant.
The book covers it all: rich, meaty dishes, filled pasta, new school salads, making pasta from scratch and pasta desserts.
Coletta also includes a chapter on meatless pasta — after all, he notes, Italians have cooked this way out of thrift for generations — and even one on using leftovers.
There’s truly is something for sweet tooths of every skill level in Sweetness: Delicious Baked Treats for Every Occasion by Sarah Levy (Agate Surrey, $20).
Levy’s offerings range from her Grandma Eadie’s Double Chocolate Chip Cake — which begins with a box of Pillsbury Moist Supreme Devil’s Food Cake — to trickier French Pistachio Macarons, which she admits can “end up looking like a seven-year-old made it,” depending on how humid it is in your kitchen.
This is the first cookbook for the 28-year-old owner of Sarah’s Pastries and Candies and, like her Gold Coast shop, it’s a pretty package.
A quibble: Levy categorizes recipes not by type of dessert but by occasion (Hostess Gifts, Matters of Love), which means you’ll do a lot of flipping around if you want to find just the cookie recipes. Also, the subheads preceding each recipe are distracting and clutter up the page.
In time for the holidays, Kelly Rudnicki has come out with The Food Allergy Mama’s Baking Book (Agate Surrey, $19.95), a tasty array of breads, cookies and desserts, all free of dairy, eggs and nuts.
One of Rudnicki’s four kids suffers from severe food allergies, which led her to start writing a blog, foodallergymama.com and, in turn, the book.
The Wilmette mom has become something of a rock star among parents of kids with food allergies. Her following is bound to grow with this book, which offers helpful notes on ingredients and substitutions. Silken tofu is about as wacky as the ingredients get.
We’re willing to bet the easy recipes will please even non-allergy sufferers (as Rudnicki says happens in her house).
There is no mention of the 2006 closing of the iconic Berghoff restaurant on West Adams in The Berghoff Cafe Cookbook (Andrews McMeel, $24.99), but readers no doubt will feel a twinge of nostalgia when they see recipes for the Berghoff’s spaetzle and schnitzel.
The book is intended to capture the spirit of today’s Berghoff Cafe, as shaped by fourth-generation restaurateur Carlyn Berghoff.
Berghoff is a Culinary Institute of America graduate and successful caterer in her own right. Her recipes, not surprisingly, have a more modern touch.
But don’t look for earth-shattering twists. There are plenty of recipes oozing of retro goodness; Sausage Wellingtons are just bigger, better pigs-in-blankets.
This book does what the old Berghoff did best: offer no-frills, comforting fare. In this season, it’s only appropriate.