First published in 1988, Italy the Beautiful Cookbook (200,000 copies sold) set the standard for exquisite presentation of Italy's authentic cuisine, combining recipes with scenic photography and details of each region. Now, nine years later, with worldwide interest in Italian food booming and a new Italian cuisine emerging, this new book has new power to satisfy the cook and traveler in us all. 
 With the accelerated pace of contemporary life, Italians have had to change their style of eating. This has created fresh ideas, quick approaches to the classics, rediscovered heritage dishes, and a more relaxed way of assembling menus. This new style is reflected in the more than 220 recipes culled from cooks throughout Italy. Emphasis is on light first courses and vegetable dishes; simply prepared fish, poultry and meats; and homemade breads, pizzas and desserts. Photographs of each region accompany these mouthwatering recipes. From the Alps to Sicily, from the fragrant herbs of Liguria to the pungent olives of Puglia, readers will delight in rediscovering the pleasures of this inspiring beloved country.

Italy Today: The Beautiful Cookbook

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Fred Plotkin

Lorenza De'Medici

Regional & International

Beautiful Cookbooks

The Authentic Pasta Book puts pasta into its best, most authentic, versatile, and exciting context. Pasta is at the heart of Italian cooking, and Italian cooking at heart is regional. Author Fred Plotkin offers pasta in concert with other regional ingredients. Here are the herb-filled ponsoti of Liguria in their traditional walnut sauce, Christmas Eve cheese tortelloni from Bologna and pizzoccheri - buckwheat pasta with potatoes, cabbage, and Fontina cheese - from the Valtellina. From Tuscany there is papperdelle with Squab; from Rome, fettuccine with radicchio. In the southern regions great use is made of mussels, clams, and shrimp; charming butterfly-shaped pasta is flavored with saffron, and lasagna is layered with a savory eggplant filling. Opera also is close to Italy's heart and provides the other theme of this book. Fred Plotkin is Performance Manager at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, a position that gave him the opportunity to collect favorite pasta recipes from some of opera's greatest stars - including Luciano Pavarotti's spaghetti alla carbonara, Renata Scotto's rigatoni all'amatriciana, and Kiri Te Kanawa's spaghetti with green prawns. Basic sauces and simple, fast, and often low-calorie dishes from all over Italy, found in "Interregional" recipes, and some of the author's own creations as well as other contemporary recipes, found in "Vari Capricci", complete The Authentic Pasta Book's collection of recipes. Finally, this definitive pasta cookbook offers clear instructions on pasta making, advice for the novice pasta cook, and a guide to ingredients, Italian regional wines, and equipment.

The Authentic PASTA Book

Cooking by Ingredient

SIMON AND SCHUSTER

A sourcebook of pasta cookery, including classic and regional Italian specialties, sauces from the basic to the exotic, and some low-calorie selections as well

The Authentic Pasta Book

Glenn Wolff

Fireside

Opera is the fastest growing of all the performing arts, attracting audiences of all ages who are enthralled by the gorgeous music, vivid drama, and magnificent production values. If you've decided that the time has finally come to learn about opera and discover for yourself what it is about opera that sends your normally reserved friends into states of ecstatic abandon, this is the book for you. Opera 101 is recognized as the standard text in English for anyone who wants to become an opera lover--a clear, friendly, and truly complete handbook to learning how to listen to opera, whether on the radio, on recordings, or live at the opera house. Fred Plotkin, an internationally respected writer and teacher about opera who for many years was performance manager of the Metropolitan Opera, introduces the reader (whatever his or her level of musical knowledge) to all the elements that make up opera, including: 
<ul>
<li>A brief, entertaining history of opera;</li> <li>An explanation of key operatic concepts, from vocal types to musical conventions;</li> <li>Hints on the best way to approach the first opera you attend and how to best understand what is happening both offstage and on;</li> <li>Lists of recommended books and recordings, and the most complete traveler's guide to opera houses around the world.</li>
</ul> The major part of Opera 101 is devoted to an almost minute-by-minute analysis of eleven key operas, ranging from Verdi's thunderous masterpiece Rigoletto and Puccini's electrifying Tosca through works by Mozart, Donizetti, Rossini, Offenbach, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner, to the psychological complexities of Richard Strauss's Elektra. Once you have completed Opera 101, you will be prepared to see and hear any opera you encounter, thanks to this book's unprecedentedly detailed and enjoyable method of revealing the riches of opera.

Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Grand Central Publishing

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Books by Fred Plotkin