cover image LoFrisco Family Cookbook: How Josie Brought Sicily to Brooklyn

LoFrisco Family Cookbook: How Josie Brought Sicily to Brooklyn

Anthony LoFrisco. Trylon, $39.95 (280p) ISBN 978-0-9975458-0-7

First-time cookbook author LoFrisco’s love letter to Italian cuisine is equal parts memoir and cookbook, a welcome trip through time. LoFrisco’s nostalgic stories from his youth in 1950s Brooklyn, such as his brief foray into a life of crime—lifting fistfuls of candy bars to share with his friends, only to have his father, a police officer, answer the call from the shop owner—are charming and delightful, and give the book a generous helping of personality and place. His recipes are perfectly fine, but also perfectly ordinary; most of them are for Italian standards (panzanella Sunday sauce, veal parmigiana, lasagne) with some culinary outliers (a Niçoise salad, potato pancakes, beef stew, coffee cake). Readers of a certain age and those with an affinity for family cookbooks are sure to find a lot to like here. LoFrisco’s a warm storyteller. His deep affection for his family and the foods of his childhood is truly a delight to behold, and it shines through in what is clearly a labor of love. (BookLife)