Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking

Michael Chiarello is the real thing--a nice guy and a great cook, enviably telegenic, and privileged to live in the Napa Valley, northern California's Eden, where he's surrounded by the best raw ingredients and the most enthusiastic dinner guests on the subcontinent. On top of all that, he's absolutely generous about sharing his secrets--and his pleasures--with the rest of us, delivering a warm and inviting new world to the home kitchen.

Casual Cooking is a big, beautiful, and friendly guide to "cooking smart"--that is, by the author's definition, making the very best meal possible in the time available and with the ingredients you have on hand. His recipes, of the Italian cucina rustica by way of California persuasion, are thorough and clear. Without being patronizing, they leave nothing to guesswork. The flavor, the texture, the moisture, the appearance, the behavior of the dish and its synergy with other foodstuffs are all respectfully and lovingly noted in these pages. "Michael's Notes," in red, share the kind of tips and cautions only a tenured chef and terrific home cook would know. Some credit should no doubt go to Chiarello's mom, at whose elbow he began picking up these nuances and appreciations. The illustrations are plentiful and elegant enough to make this a coffee-table book, the content thorough enough to make this a serious working cookbook. --Schuyler Ingle and Joyce Thompson