Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan

Marcella Hazan has created what is considered by many to be the "bible" of Italian cooking. If you could only get one Italian cookbook, this would be the one to get. "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking" collects recipes from Hazan's 2 previous classics (The Classic Italian Cookbook and More Classic Italian Cooking) into one indispensable volume.

What makes Hazan's book so great is the obvious care she puts into the recipe instructions. So often the little details separate a perfect dish from a mediocre one. A good example is her recipe for one of the simplest dishes, pasta with olive oil and garlic. Nearly all Italian cookbooks tell you to salt the pasta water, but Hazan really stresses that you must make the water salty to season the pasta itself, which would just taste plain and drab otherwise. This step *makes* the recipe. It could be just me, but it never occurred to me that this throwaway step could make such a huge difference in the final product. Her careful attention to detail virtually ensures a great dish.

So does this mean that you should throw away all your other Italian cookbooks? Not necessarily. Like any other cookbook that tries to provide a comprehensive tour of an entire national cuisine, there are bound to be some gaps. For instance, there doesn't seem to be a puttanesca recipe. And a lot of the recipes are time-consuming. So having an everyday Italian cookbook or a few regional Italian cookbooks to complement this one would be in order. Hazan provides such a solid foundation for Italian cooking that after reading her book, you can apply a surer hand to other cookbooks and be even more successful in your Italian cooking efforts.

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