Customer Reviews

Recipes from Paradise: Life & Food on the Italian Riviera

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

 

 

This is an outstanding cookbook. The recipes are interesting with some being unusual. I have cooked many of the dishes in this book often for entertaining and everyone has been impressed. I'm constantly asked where the recipes come from and if I would share them. For the most part the recipes are fairly simple and always straightforward. Fred Plotkin has obviously put much thought and care into the recipes because they always turn out, not something that can be said for most cookbooks. I highly recommend this book for the novice cook as well as the more experienced.

More than a cookbook, this is an evocative introduction to life on the Italian Riviera. The excellent, clear recipes sent us right to the kitchen -- and the picture Plotkin paints of Liguria sent us right to our travel agent: we've just come back from a vacation in the region, and this book proved an excellent guide.

Excellent service, prompt delivery, excellent condition
as described, packaged well.
Would use again.

I bought this book and was very disappointed by the recipes. It is beautifully presented but the recipes were, in my opinion, probably not tested by the author for either flavor or correct proportion of ingredients.
For example, the Pansoti (little Ligurian raviolis) and walnut sauce recipe was a loser from start to finish. The ingredients for the pasta dough were so far out of whack as to be unusable (and that includes both the one for the actual recipe and the book's generic pasta dough recipe). The stuffing for the pansoti's (and I followed the recipe as written) was devoid of flavor and the walnut sauce (and the directions for its application to the pasta) was very poor. It had decent flavor but came out very thick and paste like, again, the result of poor, inaccurate ingredient proportions.
Given the price of this book, it is not at all a good buy.
I'm an experienced cook and because of a trip to Liguria I was excited about trying this book. Unfortunately, the book is, in my view, all show and possesses little substance. I would advise against buying it.