A Kitchen in Italy: A Year of Family Meals and Celebrations from Our Home

Thorisson (Old World Italian) serves up a sumptuous collection of 100 classic and personal favorite Italian dishes perfected over six years of living in Torino. Noting in the epilogue that “if you want to know how to make a Milanese veal cutlet you can just google it,” she aims to “put recipes in context” with “somewhere [you’d] like to be.” To do so, she sets the recipes against personal essays about her culinary journey and approach to hosting and includes striking photographs of family life. The four chapters follow the seasons, each offering a range of antipasti, primi, secondi, and dolci from simple to elaborate. A raw lemon salad leads off in the spring, followed by grilled fish with lemon and herbs in summer. In autumn, there’s tagliolini with white truffles and butter, “the most luxurious and simple pasta dish on earth,” while classic penne alla vodka will warm a winter night. More involved dishes include eggplant timballo, lasagna with meatballs, stuffed Easter bread, and tiramisu. Holiday fare culminates with a Christmas Eve feast featuring fried spaghetti-wrapped shrimp, lobster soufflé, and vanilla chestnut cake. Instructions assume such technical knowledge as how to wrestle the heart out of an artichoke, blanch fava beans, or flake salmon. The author’s personal approach and gorgeous presentation make this a giftable collection. (Nov.)