The Food of Campanile: Recipes from the Famed Los Angeles Restaurant: A Cookbook

5 stars if you're on the West Coast, the southern East Coast, or just a cookbook nerd like me; 2-3 stars for the novice or on-a-serious-budget cook; 4 stars for those inland with access to fresh produce or those on the more northerly East Coast with access to lots of fresh seafood and most produce in season. I loved reading this cookbook: the chapter introductions and the headnotes just bubble over with the authors' love for cooking and for their restaurant. There is so much to love here, especially a wonderful pasta chapter with all sorts of excellent tips. They provide not only thorough instructions on pasta-making but also why dried pasta is superior in some dishes--and they provide recipes and very specific pasta types to prove it. For risotto and polenta as well, they provide excellent instructions, technique, and helpful suggestions for variations. The Stock chapter provides recipes for 7 types of stock, with full descriptions of technique and equipment needed--none of this "recipe must fit onto one page" nonsense. This is, in fact, true of every chapter--thanks to the authors for arguing with their editors to give us the step-by-step techniques for which we cooks long! If we're going to go to the trouble and expense to make Duck Stock, we want to do it right, and we are most grateful for 2 1/2 pages of precise instructions! There are plenty of tips throughout--for example, where to find duck bones. The Sauce chapter is wonderful, with modern updates on the classics. For me, the book passed the "Post-It" test, meaning that I stuck a bunch of virtual Post-Its on pages of recipes that I'm dying to try. The Kindle format was okay but not great (probably due to its 1997 copyright). For example, the TOC is clickable, chapter TOC's are clickable to recipes, but there are many embedded recipes throughout that are not clickable. However, this isn't a big deal because they are Capitalized to Give Us a Clue; however, you'll have to guess as to which chapter in which to find them. For example, Celery Root Slaw is in Salads. Looking for Roasted Garlic Tartar Sauce? Good guess! It's in Sauces. Marjoram Pesto? I still can't find it. My Kindle version did not have an index. B&W photos are few and far between: perhaps 15 in the whole book, primarily for chapter headings and a handful for technique. My primary criticism regards the accessibility of ingredients. Peel and Silverton (except for a brief Manhattan stint--and every ingredient is readily available in NYC)--are California chefs: they probably have no clue how hard it would be for those of us not on the West Coast to find fresh figs or fresh porcini mushrooms. I found their headnote about chanterelle mushrooms amusing: "should be available late August through mid-December." Ummm....okay, in a few weeks I'll strap into my snowshoes and go foraging for chanterelles :). To their credit, the authors sometimes make substitution suggestions or tell us when frozen (veal bones) will work in lieu of fresh; however, I don't know whether I can use frozen duck, sweetbreads, oxtails, or crab instead of fresh; how to find fresh grape leaves, and there's no "Sources" or "Ingredients" chapter to help me out. So, I wouldn't recommend this for a novice or someone seriously counting their ingredient pennies. Still, I loved it.

While I have made only a couple recipes from this book, they were awesome. I have several more i can't wait to try.

Looking forward to trying quite a few of the recipes.... they do not seem difficult and dishes any one would enjoy

The recipes in this book are really, really good and there isn't one that I wouldn't want to try.I have always been a big fan of Nancy Silverton's food and her versatility shines through in this volume.I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys cooking and eating!

Love this book! Great recipes! Yummy pictures.

well presented

This joint effort by Nancy Silverton and Mark Peel contains a wonderful collection of creative recipes from the restuarant they formerly owned together--Campanile.Peel and Silverton offer the home cook detailed technique and illustrations, although the illustrations are not in color.This is not a simple recipe book as many recipes contains sub-recipes. However, for any cook desiring to cook an outstanding meal this is a wonderful book to have on your shelf.The book provides 7 stock recipes--veal, chicken, lamb, fish, vegetable, court boullion, duck. There is also a recipe for pasta dough. A separate sauces section contains a wide variety.Although the vegetable recipes are probably the most simple to prepare, several are a variation on a standard theme.This is one book that doesn't stay on my shelf. Certainly this book is a much better effort than Silverton and Peel's prior collaboration.

OK

The book was marginally more worn than I expected from the description but still in good shape. Received promptly (given international shipping). I would do business with them again.