Fabio’s 30-Minute Italian

Viviani, a restaurateur and TV personality, knows which side his garlic bread is buttered on. Seven photos of his handsome face turn up even before the first appetizer appears, and another half dozen or so are scattered among the more than 100 recipes. All of this helps to distract from the fact that a large handful of these recipes take longer than 30 minutes to prepare. They are rustic, leisurely dishes that shouldn’t be hurried to begin with, but Viviani betrays his premise not only with a 45-minute carrot soup and a 90-minute strawberry-almond soufflé, but abandons the concept completely with a six-hour braised pork and an eight-hour leg of lamb. “Everything I am I owe to pasta,” he writes; thus the book’s centerpiece offers instruction on making classic, whole-wheat, and gluten-free pastas, and provides 16 hearty and fancy variations, including rigatoni with roasted shrimp, marinated crab, and red pepper sauce, as well as fettuccine with salmon, dill, zucchini ribbons, and Romano sauce. When photographer Armendariz turns his lens toward the plate, in this ultimately accessible cookbook, there are delicious close-ups of multicolored entrées such as sea bass with red pepper sauce, pistachio gremolata, and mascarpone sauce. Agent: Michael Psaltis, Culinary Entertainment. (May)