Plump gnocchi stuffed with juicy plums and then tossed in browned butter, sugar, and cinnamon? How about pasta filled with dried figs and ricotta, or even chocolate and walnuts? Yes, Italian food is more than just spaghetti, and tiny Friuli–Venezia Giulia—hidden from tourist mobs in Italy’s northeast corner—boasts one of the country’s most distinctive regional cuisines. With influences from Austria, Hungary, and Slovenia, the Friulian people cleverly merge humble, local ingredients with exotic spices from foreign lands, resulting in a cuisine that, while often surprising in its blend of sweet and savory flavors, never ceases to delight the palate. In Flavors of Friuli, Elisabeth Antoine Crawford has compiled eighty of Friuli’s traditional recipes—including frico (Montasio cheese crisps) and gubana (dried fruit and nut spiral cake)—and presents them with clear instructions that any home cook can easily follow.

An eye-opening exploration of a unique region of Italy that bridges the Alps and the Adriatic Sea, featuring 80 recipes and wine pairings from a master sommelier and James Beard Award-winning chef. “An exhilarating journey, no passport required.”—Thomas Keller, chef/proprietor, The French Laundry Bordered by Austria, Slovenia, and the Adriatic Sea, the northeastern Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia is an area of immense cultural blending, geographical diversity, and idyllic beauty. This tiny sliver of land is home to one of the most refined food and wine cultures in the world and yet remains off the grid. The unique cuisine of Friuli is what inspires the menu at Frasca, a James Beard Award-winning restaurant in Boulder, Colorado, helmed by master sommelier Bobby Stuckey and chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson. Meaning “branch” or “bough,” the word frasca refers to the Friulian tradition of hanging a branch outside the family farm as a sign that new wine was available for sale. Friuli Food and Wine celebrates this practice and the wine and cuisine of the Friulian region through eighty recipes and wine pairings. Dishes such as Wild Mushroom and Montasio Fonduta, Chicken Marcundela with Cherry Mostarda and Potato Puree, Squash Gnocchi with Smoked Ricotta Sauce, and Whole Branzino in a Salt Crust are organized by Land, Sea, and Mountains, while profiles of local winemakers and wines, including Tocai, Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia Istriana, and Verduzzo, open up new pairing possibilities. Showcasing the best Friulian wines you can buy outside of Italy as well as restaurant and winery recommendations, this beautifully photographed cookbook, wine guide, and travelogue brings the delicious secrets of this untouched part of Italy into your home kitchen.

An eye-opening exploration of a unique region of Italy that bridges the Alps and the Adriatic Sea, featuring 80 recipes and wine pairings from a master sommelier and James Beard Award-winning chef. “An exhilarating journey, no passport required.”—Thomas Keller, chef/proprietor, The French Laundry Bordered by Austria, Slovenia, and the Adriatic Sea, the northeastern Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia is an area of immense cultural blending, geographical diversity, and idyllic beauty. This tiny sliver of land is home to one of the most refined food and wine cultures in the world and yet remains off the grid. The unique cuisine of Friuli is what inspires the menu at Frasca, a James Beard Award-winning restaurant in Boulder, Colorado, helmed by master sommelier Bobby Stuckey and chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson. Meaning “branch” or “bough,” the word frasca refers to the Friulian tradition of hanging a branch outside the family farm as a sign that new wine was available for sale. Friuli Food and Wine celebrates this practice and the wine and cuisine of the Friulian region through eighty recipes and wine pairings. Dishes such as Wild Mushroom and Montasio Fonduta, Chicken Marcundela with Cherry Mostarda and Potato Puree, Squash Gnocchi with Smoked Ricotta Sauce, and Whole Branzino in a Salt Crust are organized by Land, Sea, and Mountains, while profiles of local winemakers and wines, including Tocai, Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia Istriana, and Verduzzo, open up new pairing possibilities. Showcasing the best Friulian wines you can buy outside of Italy as well as restaurant and winery recommendations, this beautifully photographed cookbook, wine guide, and travelogue brings the delicious secrets of this untouched part of Italy into your home kitchen.

A collection of authentic Italian family recipes from the Season 4 winner of MasterChef! Most of Italian chef Luca Manfe’s early memories, especially of family holidays, revolve around food. Passed down from his nonnas, these recipes reflect the warm, rustic flavors of Friuli, Italy: rich frico, risotto, and savory polenta. Also showcased are the lighter bites that pair perfectly with a glass of wine: crostini with ricotta and honey, or a tramezzini, the Italian version of English high-tea sandwiches. Standout desserts include the tiramisu he made with his mother when he was eight years old and his now-famous basil panna cotta that helped win him the title of MasterChef. “I love to teach,” says Manfe, “I’ll show you the fundamentals of fantastic Italian food, including homemade stock (I swear, it’s easy), pasta from scratch, and more. My Italian Kitchen is packed with the food that I love and that you and your family will love too.”

"This lush guide, featuring more than 350 glorious photographs from National Geographic, showcases the best Italy has to offer from the perspective of two women who have spent their lives reveling in its unique joys."--Publisher's description.

As a young child in Naples, Italy, Sergio Esposito sat at his kitchen table observing the daily ritual of his large, loud family bonding over fresh local dishes and simple country wines. While devouring the rich bufala mozzarella, still sopping with milk and salt, and the platters of fresh prosciutto, sliced so thin he could see through it, he absorbed the profound relationship of food, wine, and family in Italian culture. Growing up in Albany, New York, after emigrating there with his family, he always sat next to his uncle Aldo and sipped from his wineglass during their customary hours-long extended family feasts. Thus, from a very early age, Esposito came to associate wine with the warmth of family, the tastes of his mother’s cooking—and, above all, memories of his former life in Italy. When he was in his twenties, he headed for New York and undertook a career in wine, beginning a journey that would culminate in his founding of Italian Wine Merchants, now the leading Italian wine source in America. His career offered him the opportunity to make frequent trips back to Italy to find wine for his clients, to learn the traditions of Italian winemaking, and, in so doing, to rediscover the Italian way of life he’d left behind. Passion on the Vine is Esposito’s intimate and evocative memoir of his colorful family life in Italy, his abrupt transition to life in America, and of his travels into the heart of Italy—its wine country—and the lives of those who inhabit it. The result is a remarkably engaging and entertaining wine/travel narrative replete with vivid portraits of seductive places—the world-famous cellars of Piedmont, the sweeping estates of Tuscany, the lush fields of Campania, the chilly hills of Friuli, the windy beaches of Le Marche; and of memorable people, diverse and vibrant wine artisans—from a disco-dancing vintner who bases his farming on the rhythm of the moon to an obsessive prince who destroys his vineyards before his death so that his grapes will never be used incorrectly. Esposito’s luscious accounts of the wonderful food and wine that are so much a part of Italian life, and his poignant and often hilarious stories of his relationships with his family and Italian friends, make Passion on the Vine an utterly unique and enchanting work about Italy and its eternally seductive lifestyle.

Featuring 140 mouthwatering new recipes, a gastronomic journey of the Italian regions that have inspired and informed Lidia Bastianich's legendary cooking. For the home cook and the armchair traveler alike, Lidia's Italy offers a short introduction to ten regions of Italy—from Piemonte to Puglia—with commentary on nearby cultural treasures by Lidia's daughter Tanya, an art historian. · In Istria, now part of Croatia, where Lidia grew up, she forages again for wild asparagus, using it in a delicious soup and a frittata; Sauerkraut with Pork and Roast Goose with Mlinzi reflect the region’s Middle European influences; and buzara, an old mariner’s stew, draws on fish from the nearby sea. · From Trieste, Lidia gives seafood from the Adriatic, Viennese-style breaded veal cutlets and Beef Goulash, and Sacher Torte and Apple Strudel. · From Friuli, where cows graze on the rich tableland, comes Montasio cheese to make fricos; the corn fields yield polenta for Velvety Cornmeal-Spinach Soup. · In Padova and Treviso rice reigns supreme, and Lidia discovers hearty soups and risottos that highlight local flavors. · In Piemonte, the robust Barolo wine distinguishes a fork-tender stufato of beef; local white truffles with scrambled eggs is “heaven on a plate”; and a bagna cauda serves as a dip for local vegetables, including prized cardoons. · In Maremma, where hunting and foraging are a way of life, earthy foods are mainstays, such as slow-cooked rabbit sauce for pasta or gnocchi and boar tenderloin with prune-apple Sauce, with Galloping Figs for dessert. · In Rome Lidia revels in the fresh artichokes and fennel she finds in the Campo dei Fiori and brings back nine different ways of preparing them. · In Naples she gathers unusual seafood recipes and a special way of making limoncello-soaked cakes. · From Sicily’s Palermo she brings back panelle, the delicious fried chickpea snack; a caponata of stewed summer vegetables; and the elegant Cannoli Napoleon. · In Puglia, at Italy’s heel, where durum wheat grows at its best, she makes some of the region’s glorious pasta dishes and re-creates a splendid focaccia from Altamura. There’s something for everyone in this rich and satisfying book that will open up new horizons even to the most seasoned lover of Italy.