The Rose Pistola Cookbook: 140 Italian Recipes from San Francisco's Favorite North Beach Restaurant [Hardcover]

Reed Hearon (Author), Peggy Knickerbocker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 1999

When award-winning chef Reed Hearon decided to open his third restaurant in the historic North Beach section of San Francisco, he wanted to pay tribute to the cuisine of the Italian immigrants who settled there. He was immediately intrigued by a hardworking, hard-drinking barkeep named Rose Pistola who had been featured in journalist Peggy Knickerbocker's recently published article on the great cooks, or "Old Stoves," of North Beach. He asked Rose if he could name his new restaurant after her, to which she replied, "What's in it for me?" Reed's answer? A table anytime.

Now tables are hard to come by at Reed's wildly successful Rose Pistola restaurant. Hailed as "the best Italian restaurant in San Francisco" by the San Francisco Chronicle, Rose Pistola took the country by storm, winning the 1997 James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant, while Bon Appetit named it "One of the Year's Best New Restaurants."

The Rose Pistola Cookbook features 140 of this beloved restaurant's best dishes, which combine Old-World Italian spirit and innovative California cuisine. Each recipe has been simplified for the home cook, emphasizing readily available ingredients and straightforward step-by-step instructions. Only the freshest seasonal fruits, vegetables, and seafood are used in ingredient-driven dishes that simply burst with flavor: Shaved Artichokes with Fava Beans and Parmesan. Roasted Beets with Ricotta Salata and Arugula. Wood-Oven Baked Goat Cheese and Roasted Pepper Pizza. Skillet-Roasted Mussels. Crisp Salmon with Fennel and Tapenade. Lamb Shanks with Peas and Potatoes. Rustic Nectarine and Berry Tart.

Striking black-and-white photographs of North Beach's farmers, fishermen, and other local residents accompany personal interviews, historical trivia, and colorful anecdotes about this exciting region. With gorgeous full-color food photographs and detailed information on techniques and ingredients, The Rose Pistola Cookbook brings the evocative flavors of North Beach into your kitchen.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When Reed Hearon, one of San Francisco's most popular chefs, opened an Italian restaurant with a wood-burning oven, he decided to focus on simple, carefully prepared, traditional dishes. His biggest coup was getting Rose Pistola to lend the restaurant her name, adding memories of the beloved North Beach saloon where this gritty, colorful woman, also known for her Old-country cooking, held court for decades.

At Rose Pistola, Hearon focuses mostly on Ligurian cuisine, made using the best local ingredients. This book, written with native San Franciscan and knowledgeable Italian cook Peggy Knickerbocker, introduces you to more than 140 of these Northern Italian dishes, including Trofie, dumpling-like pasta, served with pungent basil pesto, and with Farinata, pizza-like chickpea crusts served topped with tuna and sun-dried tomatoes or fresh sage leaves, tiny olives, and onions slowly melted in olive oil until they caramelize. Hearon explains how home cooks should make his Roasted Fish with Potatoes and Artichokes, punctuated with tiny olives and a splash of white wine, and satisfying antipasti like Baked Ricotta, served with garlic-laden arugula purée and grilled or toasted country bread. Instructions for making ricotta cheese from milk, slowly oven-baking white beans, and preparing fresh, lemon-zested Basilade for finishing dishes, will enlarge any cook's repertoire.

Hearon offers a bountiful Cioppino, the aromatic, brothy stew native to the Golden Gate city. Like most Italian and Californian cooks, Hearon relies heavily on the quality of what is local. He also makes a brilliant Braised Chicken with Turnips, Potatoes, and Carrots, easy for almost anyone, anywhere to reproduce. Desserts feature fresh berries and other fruit, but chocoholics will adore the Budino, an alluringly butter-rich baked chocolate pudding enrobed in creamy ganache and covered in a layer of cake. As Hearon suggests, though, you can be in heaven serving the pudding unadorned and cut into slices.

Historic black-and-white photos and yummy-looking color photos of the food give this book a lively sense of history and make you yearn to eat at the trendy Rose Pistola, selected as Best New Restaurant in the United States in 1997 by the James Beard Foundation. --Dana Jacobi

From Publishers Weekly

Emphasizing the virtues of fresh herbs and vegetables, chef Hearon (Salsa) infuses many of his Ligurian-inspired recipes with an appealing inventiveness. Asparagus, Artichoke and Poached Lemon Salad contains fruit sliced so it can be eaten, rind and all. Hearon adds harissa to Gnocchi with Calamari Bolognese for extra taste. A cup of Biga deepens the flavor of Pizza dough. He tosses roasted chestnuts into caramelizing vegetables to accompany Roast Guinea Fowl with Pancetta. Braised Oxtails with Asparagus receives an added fillip at the end in the form of Basilade, a pounded gremolata-type sauce made with basil instead of parsley. The soups in particularAlike White Bean Soup with Braised Greens and Summer Tomato SoupAare easy to prepare, with well-balanced ingredients. More complicated entr?es include Giant Ravioli of Soft Egg and Wild Greens, Fried Milk-Brined Rabbit and Roasted Morel Salad, and, of course, the famous coastal Cioppino, featuring Dungeness crab. Desserts range from the simple Zabaglione with Strawberries in Red Wine to the rich and very demanding cream cake, Sacripantina. Most of this savory restaurant fare is within reach of the confident home cook. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1 edition (October 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767902505
• ISBN-13: 978-0767902502
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,067,703 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rose Pistola - Satisfying and Easy, May 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Rose Pistola Cookbook: 140 Italian Recipes from San Francisco's Favorite North Beach Restaurant (Hardcover)

Reed Heron is a successful restaurant owner in San Francisco who constantly packs the house with quality food. It's a place where men like to go and women like to be seen. The same goes for his cookbook. These are easy to prepare recipes that give lots of interesting tastes to satisfy your need for comfort food on a cold winter night or some grazing food for that hot summer day. Don't miss trying the Tomato Bread Soup or the Terriorized Steak. This is real food for real people, not one of those glitzy books that look good on the coffee table that you never use because they take too much time or too many ingredients. Enjoy and don't forget to visit the restaurant when you're in San Francisco.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars try an enchilada with a fish baccala, January 6, 2011

By 

Babbey Jackson (California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Rose Pistola Cookbook: 140 Italian Recipes from San Francisco's Favorite North Beach Restaurant (Hardcover)

Things that are cool and Italian: Ferraris, Dean Martin, Italian Cooking and wristbands.

You cannot really buy a Ferrari on Amazon and you can't be Dean Martin as far as I know. Yes, I realize wristbands aren't Italian but you CAN buy them on Amazon however they will be nothing without this cookbook.

I have had the pleasure of dining at this little gem in San Francisco. The food there is great, the wine list is impressive and the experience is better than good. What I like about this cookbook is you learn to make delicious meals with a few simple ingredients.

People are impressed when I bring out the salt rock fish and break open the salt to pull out a perfectly cooked fish. They rave about my mussels and even my salad gets thumbs up from every primate with opposable thumbs.

If you like cooking and you enjoy Italian food then I recommend this to you. If you don't like either of those things then I recommend you get with the program, buddy.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's fabulpus!!, August 17, 2008

By 

C. Pine (Fresno, Ca) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rose Pistola Cookbook: 140 Italian Recipes from San Francisco's Favorite North Beach Restaurant (Hardcover)

i was looking for a great cookbook to send relatives to thank them for an amazing dinner at their home. When I saw this, I snapped it up FAST, in multiple copies! I've eaten in the restaurant in San Francisco...for sure one of the BEST EVER!!! and, I've eaten in some of the best restaurants there are! This book adds to the memories!!