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(More customer reviews)Don't dis the Sopranos book -- just don't say it's the same thing as this. The Sopranos Family Cookbook is marketing with good recipes, whereas Henry Hill's masterpiece here is as much a retelling of his biography as it is an excellent Sicilian-American cookbook with a heavy emphasis on making do when you can't get what you need.
I think the recipe that sums this book up best is the Oven Penitentiary Sauce, a concoction that Henry and his prison buddies cooked up for those days when the guards have taken all your pots and pans away and all you've got is the steam table pans and the prison bakery. The whole book is like that -- real food, salvaged when something goes wrong. Lots of Italian, but a few surprises from other parts of the country (particularly the South), reflecting Henry's travels in Witness Protection. Substitutions are a big deal too -- from the pork-for-veal scam Hill learned as a kid working in a pizzeria all the way up. Hill's message to cooks: you can always find a way to make it work.
At my bookstore we sold a couple of hundred copies of the Sopranos book over the Holidays, and that was pretty cool. But I had two standard recommendations to go along with that -- Italian Classics from Cooks Illustrated and this one. Of all three (and I say buy them all), fuhgeddaboutit, this is the best -- it's very autobiographical, and will leave you very, very hungry at the end.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Wise Guy Cookbook: My Favorite Recipes From My Life as a Goodfella to Cooking on the Run
Henry Hill was a born wiseguy, and his love of food got him through both the good and bad times. Even cooking on the run in the Federal Witness Protection Program-where prosciutto was impossible to find and gravy was something you put on mashed potatoes-he managed to keep good Italian food on the table. He still brings this flair for improvisation to his cooking. No recipe is set in stone. And substitutions are listed just in case. Now, in his inimitable style, Hill tells some spicy stories of his life in the Mob and out, and shows readers how to whip up his favorite dishes, Sicilian-style-recipes to make even the toughest tough-guy beg for more... Mom's Antipasto € Sunday Gravy (Meat Sauce) € Cheaters Chicken Stock € Striped Bass for Paulie € Fat Larry's Pizza Dough € Henry's Kickback Antipasti Hero € Sicilian Easter Bread with Colored Eggs € Clams Casino € Osso Bucco € Oven Penitentiary Sauce with Sausage € Michael's Favorite Ziti with Meat Sauce € and many others
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