cover image MANY BEAUTIFUL THINGS: Stories and Recipes from Polizzi Generosa

MANY BEAUTIFUL THINGS: Stories and Recipes from Polizzi Generosa

Vincent Schiavelli, . . Simon & Schuster, $26 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-7432-1528-2

The author of Bruculinu, America returns with a sort of inside-out version of that book: this time, rather than recording the Italian-American traditions in the Brooklyn neighborhood where he grew up, he returns to the Sicilian hometown of his grandparents. Schiavelli's personal connection renders his writing warm and affectionate and, not surprisingly, his descriptions of meals eaten and cooked are excellent, as when he recalls his first meal in Polizzi Generosa in 1988, enjoyed on what would have been his grandfather's 116th birthday. Essays cover topics such as the making of ricotta (eaten while still warm) and the Sicilian tradition of family nicknames, many of them vulgar, some derived from long-forgotten events. An essay on Schiavelli's first trip to Polizzi Generosa with his Los Angeles–raised 11-year-old son is truly heartwarming without ever slipping into unwarranted sentimentality. The accompanying recipes are true to Sicilian tradition: simple and fresh and always attuned to the seasons. They include Sweet-and-Sour Meatballs made with ground almonds and a simple Fried Ricotta Omelet. Oddly, however, the recipes do not always match the dishes described in the text. For example, a chapter on winter in Sicily limns a particularly hearty meal that opened with simple chickpea soup "flavored only with salt, black pepper and wild fennel," then follows with a recipe for Chickpea Soup with Meatballs and Chard. But these are minor quibbles with what is on the whole a moving and enticing work. (Oct.)