Urban Italian

Lisa: During the past two weeks cooking from Alice Waters, my spices remained dormant. Every ingredient pretty much stood on its own with perhaps a little salt, citrus, or olive oil. I decided on Urban Italian for the next cookbook because I have cooked three recipes from it, all of which were successful and flavorful. Remembering just how flavorful these dishes were was the key factor in choosing this book. I didn’t want more boring meals. I want exciting meals, tasty meals, meals I will want to make again. This book has the possibility to deliver. Another reason I chose this book is because the author tells you how easy or complicated the recipe is, as well as how long it should take you prepare the recipe. Since I have been fairly busy lately, knowing these factors ahead of time will help me plan meals better.

Paul: As a fun bonus we're going to listen to Rossini during meal prep over the next two weeks as a literary nod to Haruki Murakami. In the Wind Up Bird Chronicle the author writes: "When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta. I wanted to ignore the phone, not only because the spaghetti was nearly done, but because Claudio Abbado was bringing the London Symphony to its musical climax." The idea of pairing Rossini with Italian food has stayed with me for many years and now we can do the same as a part of our lives. The only difference is that we're not going to be listening to overtures, no way, we'll be listening to arias by Cecilia Bartoli and Joyce DiDonato. Does it get better? No it does not.