ANTIPASTI: Citrus Vinaigrette; Tricolore Salad; Hand Torn Croutons; Spring Panzanella; PRIMI: Compound Butters; Local Clams in Bagna Cauda Butter; Pesto Pizze; Penne Pasta; Gnocchi Dumplings; SECONDI: Chicken Alla Diavola; Lamb Chops; Gulf Shrimp Pastina ‘Risotto’; BREAKFAST: Spring Frittata: DOLCI: Chocolate Hazelnut Crespelle; Strawberries in Port. Executive Chef Tom Small’s culinary expertise has been acquired at some of the finest restaurants in California including Smitty’s Grill, TAPS Fish House & San Antonio Winery. He also spent several years cooking on private vintage rail cars traveling all over the country. Chef Small grew up in Southern California, where he received his inspiration for cooking from his mom. Tom has a diverse culinary background including education, development and journalism in addition to his management in the kitchen. He teaches a number of cooking classes and writes frequent culinary articles. He has a passion for local and seasonal products as well as a firm foundation in technique and classical cuisine. He enjoys food that is based on essential principles of Italian cooking: Simple treatment of food, seasonal & local ingredients and presentation that is clean and natural to the eye. Tom takes great pleasure in showing you not only how to prepare Seasonal Italian Cuisine, but also demonstrates proper knife handling techniques, how to select the best ingredients, and all the little tricks, tips & techniques he’s learned working in restaurants. REVIEW: LIBRARY JOURNAL - Small is a serious, straightforward, and knowledgeable professional and a splendid teacher. This series is highly recommended for academic cooking classes, high school and above, and for public library patrons wanting to expand their kitchen repertoire.
N**F
Some nice Italian dishes, but would have liked a few more...
I am a big fan of cooking videos and I feel like I often learn something or get some good ideas when watching them. That was the case here. Tom Small, the presenter on this disk, is head chef at what looks like a suburban Italian restaurant. He shows you how to make some very tasty Italian dishes at home. Nothing is complicated and the ingredients will all be found at your local supermarket. Inside the disk case there is a removable list of ingredients for all the recipes so that you can take it along to shop for them without having to first play the disk and write them down yourself.As to what is included, there are a couple of choices for each of several courses in a full Italian meal. There are a couple of salads, clams in a white wine sauce, a couple of pastas, and a pizza with pesto and ricotta. There is also one recipe each for chicken, lamb, and shrimp dishes. There are two choices for desserts. That makes 12 dishes in all, plus a recipe for seasoned butter which is used to make the sauce in which the clams are cooked. You can watch the whole disk end to end in just under an hour and a quarter.This is one disk in a series of four, Dare To Cook, Seasonal Italian Cuisine (4-Disc) , and this one focuses on spring. That means lots of fresh tomatoes, garlic and fresh herbs in the recipes. I liked several things presented here. The pesto pizza was really good. The penne with pancetta, peas, and mascarpone was quick and easy. The lamb chops in garlic and rosemary were also easy and very tasty.All that said, I can only give this disk three stars. At a bit over an hour and with only twelve recipes, there isn't really quite enough here to be a satisfying product all by itself. Since the full set is four seasons, it would have been better to either include more dishes in each season or to put two seasons on a disk in order to give enough content to justify the price. It would have been nice to have included printable recipes in addition to the videos. Still, since I was lucky enough to find this at my local library, I enjoyed watching it and I will certainly make some of the dishes presented. Despite the short list of recipes, everything presented was done very well.
E**2
Waste of time.
We rented this DVD set for free from our local library. I am glad we didn't pay anything for it because it was not very good. It only had two recipes in the entire 4 disc set that I want to try. This DVD set will put you to sleep.
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