Italian

Marcia Sweet, former editor of the Queen’s Quarterly, is an
information consultant and freelance editor.

Jean Paré’s Company’s Coming cookbooks are a Canadian institution.
While some cookbook authors sniffily insist on exotic herbs and vinegars
to achieve the sublime essence of a dish, Paré’s recipes have long
called for accessible ingredients that one can find in ordinary
small-town grocery stores or that are easily stored in rural pantries.
Sometimes she goes too far in simplifying recipes; my favorite Osso Buco
recipe uses lemon zest, not lemon juice, and it makes a big difference
in the flavor.

Paré can take a lot of the credit for moving Canadian homemakers
toward more adventurous palates. In the Mexican volume, she describes
various peppers in terms of their hotness. There’s a dinner menu for
20, and directions for making a piсata. In the Italian volume, she
shows us how to make cappelleti and tells us how to clean leeks. She
includes in both books glossaries, indexes, measurement conversion
tables, nutritional values, and culinary hints. These are great little
books that will be enjoyed by beginning or experienced cooks who want to
capture the feeling and flavor of other culinary cultures.