Italian Intermezzo (Menus and Music) [Paperback]

Sharon O'Connor (Author)

Book Description

Series: Menus and Music | Publication Date: August 1, 2000

The best Italian dinners are made at home! This bountiful feast for the senses includes a 248-page cookbook with recipes form extraordinary chefs and a music CD of songs that capture the sound of Italy. Masterpiece paintings, poetry, and luscious food photography complete the experience. Sharon O'Connor traveled throughout Italy and the United States to visit 21 of the finest chefs in the world. She has formatted 120 of their recipes for the home cook, including dishes for each course of a traditional Italian meal. Baked Ricotta Cheese; Pappardelle with Shrimp, Tomatoes, and Basil; and Espresso Gelato will soon become favorites.

On the accompanying CD, the Pizzarelli-Peplowski Sextet creates the sound of Italy everyone knows, from Neapolitan songs and opera to pop songs and music from the movies. Italian Intermezzo will inspire many evenings of music, food, joy, and romance at home!

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Italian Intermezzo, the latest in Sharon O'Connor's Menus and Music series, brings together recipes from Italian eateries in Italy and the U.S. Recipes reflect current restaurant cooking trends, with items such as porcini mushroom souffles and fruit soups particularly notable. One of the book's best-conceived menus hails from a Seattle restaurant where wild-mushroom-sauced spaghettini and rich braised lamb shanks precede dessert of pears and gorgonzola, perfect flavor complements. An accompanying CD of light classic Italian music helps to inspire the cook laboring over the stove or to create a romantic atmosphere at dinner. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Sharon O'Connor is a musician, author, and cook who combines her love of music, food, and travel in the Menus and Music series of cookbooks with music recordings. Founder of the San Francisco String Quartet, she was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Menus & Music Productions (August 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883914221
• ISBN-13: 978-1883914226
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #797,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sharon O'Connor is building a career around her passions. She travels the world collaborating with great chefs and musicians, bringing together food, art, music, and travel to create her two best-selling series, Menus and Music® and MusicCooks®.

After graduating from the University of California with degrees in music and sociology, Sharon continued her education in Europe at the renowned Amsterdam Conservatory of Music. Upon returning to the Bay Area, she established the San Francisco String Quartet, and for sixteen years the quartet performed in the Garden Court of San Francisco's celebrated Palace Hotel. In her remarkable career as a musician, O'Connor has recorded and performed with music icons such as Frank Sinatra, Van Morrison, Tony Bennett, Linda Ronstadt, and Aretha Franklin!

In 1985, Sharon founded Menus and Music and became the first person to ever package a cookbook with music. In 2005, Sharon introduced MusicCooks, stylish boxed recipe cards with music that makes cooking and entertaining at
home more fun. O'Connor's recipes are fresh, quick, and easy, and each one has a sensational food photo, practical cook's tips, and a shopping and pantry list. The music is performed by Grammy Award winners and other great musicians. Now with more than thirty titles, O'Connor's publications have sold millions of copies worldwide.

Sharon O'Connor lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her husband and two daughters enthusiastically help in the research, travel, and tasting for her series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mouth Watering Recipes and Heavenly Italian Music, March 29, 2005

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Italian Intermezzo (Menus and Music) (Paperback)

This might be Sharon O'Connor's most complete dining experience, though for the music I prefer two other books by Sharon, the LIGHTHEARTED GOURMET, and ROCK N ROLL DINER, which has all those tracks from AMERICAN GRAFFITI and which I play whenever I find myself unable to visit Mel's Diner here in San Francisco.

If you are not familiar with the Menus and Music books, they are simplicity itself. On the one hand, a lavish cookbook with recipes taken from the finest restaurants in the world, and on the other, lovely music drawn from Sharon O'Connor's historic past as a musician and record producer. On the Italian CD, you get a very fun band playing background music for when you dig in to her recipes. My favorite dish here is a little something that melts in your mouth, called Faraona Arrosto con Fonduta. You won't believe you're eating something not too far removed from ordinary chicken parmesan.

But oh, the difference is delectable! If it's Rome, Naples or North Beach, Sharon O'Connor has been there, probably with Placido Domingo, the famed opera singer and a personal friend (of Sharon's, not mine). I wish!

4.0 out of 5 stars Back to Italy, January 12, 2008

By 

Rosemary "Cancino" (El Segundo, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Italian Intermezzo (Menus and Music) (Paperback)

Great to spend time with my husband. It brings us both back to Italy while we cook together and listen to great Italian music.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Product might be fine BUT, February 14, 2011

By 

Joseph J. Gannon "Eurotourist" (Tappan, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Italian Intermezzo (Menus and Music) (Paperback)

Unable to find any avenue on this website to say that you charged me $3.99 for giftwrap. The wrapping was ripped along one side of the book and the packaging was obviously inadequate to save it. Kind of shabby to give a gift with the paper torn.