Synopses & Reviews
When two great chefs buddies and business partners for twenty-odd years decide to write a cookbook about the simple Italian food they love, you get decades of experience, sage advice, and wonderful recipes. And you also get a few great arguments thrown in along the way, as Pino and Mark debate the right way to make everything from meatballs to pot roast to eggplant parmigiana.
Of course, the issue is not whose recipes are better Pino and Mark would be first to praise each other's food. And it's not about a right or wrong way. It's about preferences in ingredients, technique, and approach.
Pino, a native of Tuscany cooking in America, is a purist. His food is grounded in tradition. Mark, a New Yorker, loves the Italian-American cooking he grew up with. Each has his favorite recipes (see back cover) and his own way, but they're bonded by a shared philosophy that the simplest food is the best, and a shared desire to please families, friends, and loyal customers with food that makes them happy.
So here are nearly 150 delicious recipes representing the best of Italian and Italian-American cooking from not one master but two, with text that teaches, dialogue that's lively, and photography that's gorgeous. There's no question about who reaps the rewards of their friendly competition it's the reader, hands down.
Whether you make Pino's Oven-Braised Lamb and Artichokes with Oven-Roasted New Potatoes and Spring Onions or Mark's Braised Holiday Capon with Sweet Potatoes and Roasted Brussels Sprouts; the end result is the same unpretentious food that is timelessly pleasing. This is home cooking at its very best.
Review
"I have long been a fan of Pino Luongo, his recipes and his restaurants (and, in fact, trained at one while researching Big Night). In these pages he and Mark have infused their expert understanding of the art of cooking with a charm and humor rarely found in a great cookbook. Bravi!" Actor Stanley Tucci
Review
"Pino and Mark's dialogue reminds me of the one I have myself, the California book in me taking to the European cool. Theirs is an entertaining and interesting conversation, and what really matters about it is that they think about the food they cook. They are both great cooks, and have shared here the best of what they do." Wolfgang Puck
Review
"Like Jagger and Richards, Martin and Lewis, Punch and Judy, or Hunt and Liddy, Pino Luongo and Mark Strausman have long been one of the great alternately functional and dysfunctional tag teams of history. Between them, what they don't know about Italian food is barely worth knowing. Following these two as they duke out their disagreements on the pages of Two Meatballs, one can be certain only that it's the reader who wins."—Author and Restaurateur Anthony Bourdain
Synopsis
What happens when you match a temperamental Tuscan who's reverent about Italian cooking traditions with a feisty Jewish guy from Queens who breaks all the rules? Two Meatballs pits these colorful chefs in a ladle-to-ladle match that proves there isn't just one way to cook Italian food.
Synopsis
Because two heads are better than one.
Though New York chef/restaurateur Pino Luongo and chef Mark Strausman have been good friends and successful restaurant partners for years, they've spent decades arguing the merits of everything from ingredients to techniques and presentation, always with the goal of getting the very best out of Italy's amazing cuisine. Two Meatballs in the Italian Kitchen is the fruit of that debate.
A native of Florence, Italy, Luongo was grounded in Tuscan culinary restraint. Strausman, the product of a polyglot New York City neighborhood that freely mixed Eastern European traditions with Italian ones, developed a culinary taste for improvisation over authenticity. When each decided to write a cookbook about simple Italian food they love, they began to argue about whose book would be better. The solution: two authors, two stories, two sets of recipes, all in one book. There's no argument about who wins the competition—it's the reader of Two Meatballs, hands down. Here are 150 delicious, simple, honest recipes representing the best of Italian and Italian-American home cooking from not one master but two.
About the Author
Pino Luongo came to America from Italy in 1980 with three passions: the Italian zest for life, his love of acting, and a passion for cooking. He is an acclaimed New York chef and restaurateur, whose restaurants includ Centolire, Coco Pazzo, and Tuscan Square.
Two Meatballsis Luongo's fifth cookbook, preceded by
A Tuscan in the Kitchen, Simply Tuscan, Fish Talking, and
La Mia Cucina Toscana. Luongo lives with his wife and children in Westchester, where he coaches his son's soccer team, listens to Italian pop songs and opera, and cooks.
Mark Strausman, a Queens native, began his career in food service selling peanuts at Shea Stadium. He is the co-owner, with Pino Luongo, of Coco Pazzo in Manhattan, where he is chef. He is also the executive chef/managing director of Fredand's at Barney's in Manhattan. and the author of author of The Campagna Table. Mark and his two sons live in New York City.
Table of Contents
Contents Introduction 8
1 • Stand-Alone Soups 15
2 • The Great Meatball Debate 35
3 • Dried Pasta and the Unification of the Two Meatballs 63
4 • Fresh Pasta Like Mama Used to Make: Essential Techniques and Well-Matched Sauces 87
5 • Risotto and Farrotto 131
6 • Two Meatballs Go Fishing 149
7 • Meat and Poultry: Rustic Oven Cooking 181
8 • Cucina al Fresco: Grilling Italian-Style 201
9 • The Twenty-First Region of Italy: Italian-American Cooking 221
10 • Sunday Means Dinner 243
11 • The Two Meatballs Go Veggie 263
12 • Dessert at Last 287
The Pantry 302
Resources 306
Acknowledgments 309
Index 310