Customer Reviews

100 Ways to Be Pasta: Perfect Pasta Recipes from Gangivecchio

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book sight unseen based solely on the quality of the author's previous books. And I bought it because I had been searching for pasta recipes that did not go heavy on the standard red or white versions. This book really delivered. A few examples:

Fusilli with Porcini Mushrooms, Aromatic Vegetables & Grappa
Ziti with Lamb, Lemon & Rosemary
Lumache Rigate with Broccoli Flowers & Turmeric Cream

September Soup with Green Beans & Caciocavallo

Capellini Timballo with Peas, Edam & Ham

Recipes are largely complete on one page and there are some photographs sprinkled throughout. Each recipe is preceded with a short paragraph by the authors giving a short personal backround on the recipe or serving ideas. Oh, and there is even a sidebar for a pasta meal for your cat or dog!

Overall I was delighted with this purchase.

I think I am going to be trying a lot of the recipes in 100 Ways to Be Pasta - these are recipes from the village of Gangivecchio, in Sicily. The book is divided into 5 chapters:

Quick and Easy Pastas
Rich Pastas
One-Dish Pastas
Soup with Pasta
Baked Pastas and Timballos

The latter is the most interesting to me - I have been very curious about Timballos since I first heard about them in the movie "Big Night" as a rare and kind of mystical dish that you will not find in many Italian cookbooks.

A timballo is a served during special occasions and Holidays. It is a kind of savory "cake" made with short or long pasta and layers of either meats, vegetables, cheese and a red or white sauce. The recipes in this book all sound delicious:

Baked Timballo of Anelleti, Veal and Vegetables
Veal Timballo with an Eggplant Shell
Eggplant and Ziti Timballo
Timballo of Winter Squash and Sausages (good idea for a new Holiday dish like Thanksgiving or Christmas)

The other chapters have recipes I have not seen in other books, mostly using the local ingredients of Sicily.

The authors give a lot of advice and the book has some beautiful photographs of the village of Gianvecchio as well as some dishes and techniques on pasta making.

Italian food is my favorite and I am very very happy with this book.

A lot of pasta books seems to be written for novice cooks. This book is more solid. It gives very useful advice, e.g. regarding pasta water (not obvious to me!), matching sauce with pasta shape. The recipes are good and go for genuine taste. I would say the recipes are personal rather than some definitive version. Like: "this is how a friend we like cooks really good garlic & oil pasta". Most of the recipes are based on olive oil and pasta made without eggs. The book does not deal with making your own pasta. All recipes start with an anecdote. If you don't like this, just skip the paragraph in italic.

The wife & I were lucky to have visited & stayed at Gangivecchio and met the owner and staff. The main thing was to be able to eat their daily creations.
Their PASTA book brings back a lot of memories of their cooking and is a treasure to us. It makes a very special gift also to someone that appreciates great Italian food.

This book contains dozens of authentic Italian pasta recipes. Some of them use pastas that might be difficult to find if you don't live near a big city, but it is not necessary to use that specific pasta. One that is similar in size and shape will do just fine.
There are so many that I want to make very soon.

Bought the book and the first recipe I tried somewhat flopped! In Peter's Timballo pg. 158, the recipe calls to start with one cup of olive oil/8 tbl of butter and then saute the onion, etc. In hindsight it seems I'd been better off with one or two tablespoons oil and 2 of butter as the recipe went awry from that point on. All in all the dish was saved at the end, albeit a bit soggy and just somewhat like the photo on pg. 159. The great frustration is trying to find an email address of the author, publisher or agent to get this corrected or to verify the ingredient's measurements were correct. Having spent the better part of 1/2 a day putting this dish together I'm reluctant to try another with this author.

This book is not only hugely informative, but fun to read. The recipes are easy to follow, and the tips are things that would never have occurred to me. I always thought pasta was so uncomplicated that my childhood "Mac'n'Cheese" pretty much summed it up. WRONG! These two passionate Italian cooks are the real thing, and my family is really, really glad I ordered this book! We should all be grateful that Wanda and Giovanna Tornabene consented to share their love of pasta with the rest of the world.