A Kitchen with a View and a #Giveaway

This book is straight out of Italy.

And I mean that literally.

The author contacted me and offered her book, A Kitchen with a View, plus a copy for one of my readers, straight from her Italian kitchen. How wonderful is that.

She offered to ship a book to a winner, but I know how that international shipping can be. It sometimes takes a loooooong time, so I offered to ship to the winner and save everyone that little bit of extra angst.

So. About the book.

The author, Letizia Matticiacci, is both a home cook and a cooking teacher, so the recipes are the sort that you'd find in a modern Italian home, and the instructions are clear. Measurements are in both metric and in spoon and cups, so you don't need to convert anything.

And the recipes are quite tempting. And doable in an American kitchen. And, like many Italian recipes, they rely on good ingredients instead of a lot of bells and whistles.

One recipe that I found interesting was an Umbrian-style chicken cacciatora which had no tomatoes. Pretty much every other cacciatore I've seen or eaten relied heavily on tomatoes, but this one got its flavor from fresh herbs, garlic, balsamic vinegar, and a little bit of lemon juice.

There's a pasta sauce recipe that's so brilliantly simple - dried porcini mushrooms, garlic, wine, and cheese play starring roles. Another pasta sauce uses Italian sausage, onion, cream, wine, and cheese. So simple, but just think about the flavors!

It's not all about dinners, though. There are salads and dessert (mmmm. hazelnut and chocolate gelato!) as well as information about ingredients as well as the lifestyle in the area. Like the olive harvest! It made me wish I had olive trees.

If you're interested in Italian home cooking that's being done today - as opposed to restaurant dishes that have been etched in stone - then this is a great glimpse into what you might find if you wandered into a home in the Umbria area.

The giveaway is over, but you can still buy your own copy of A Kitchen with a View!

Make Ahead Bread #Giveaway and an appeal for #charity

If you think that most folks who are on government assistance or who ask for donations for specific causes are just lazy deadbeats, think again.

How long would your savings last if your primary wage-earner suddenly stopped earning wages? I know a whole lot of people who pay bills when the paycheck arrives, and when they're done there's not much left in the checking account. Some people have more than that set aside for a rainy-day fund or perhaps a vacation fund that could be tapped. So, that gets you another month or so.

Then what?

How easy would it be for you to find another job? If you're in your 20's or 30's, it might not be that hard. But when you hit your 40's and beyond, you find out that companies want younger folks who will work for less pay. Or you're overqualified for the entry-level positions they have open. Or, as you hit the higher numbers, they want people will potentially work for the company for a long time. They're not that interested in someone who is gazing longingly at retirement.

It's one thing to want to work, and it's another thing to be hired. It's one thing to want to work and it's another to find the perfect job with all the benefits you desire.

What would your choice be if you were paying bills and you could afford either the rent/mortgage or the health insurance - but not both? Most people would opt to keep a roof over their heads and roll the dice that they wouldn't get sick enough to warrant expensive care.

But what if they do get sick?

People who are on the very low end of the income bracket can get food stamps, free health care through medicaid, and other government subsidies. People just above that level scrape buy on their wages, pay all their bills, and don't have spare cash for frivolous spending - like Starbucks coffee, vacations, birthday presents, or proper medical care.

My friend Janet Brand, who blogs at From Cupcakes to Caviar, is living life on that edge. She has six kids, two of whom are still living at home. And one of them has special needs and will always need care. Her husband works and the bills get paid, but his company doesn't provide medical insurance for Janet.

And now she needs medical insurance, because it's the only way she can afford treatment for something that would be overwhelmingly expensive otherwise. Let's face it, pretty much any medical procedure larger than a vaccination is overwhelmingly expensive these days, unless you have insurance.

At my urging, which included threats to bludgeon her over the head (virtually), Janet started a GoFundMe campaign to raise the money she needs for a year's worth of insurance premiums and to pay the deductible for that year.

She's not asking for a new nose or a tummy tuck. She's not asking for more than she needs, and she's hoping that a year of treatment will be all she needs. At least it's a good start.

Initially, she had resigned herself to letting the condition take it course, but I finally said, "do it for your kids," and she relented. If she wasn't able to care for her kids, her husband certainly wouldn't be able to do it since he would have to continue to work to support them. Chances are that her special needs son would end up in a home, since finding someone to care for him would be beyond expensive.

I've seen plenty of GoFundMe campaigns for things that were not necessary for survival - like travel or dishwashers or home remodeling. I've seen them for completely trivial things. And people get funding for those.

This campaign isn't trivial. It's ... well, it's life-saving.

If you're in the same position as Janet and every penny counts, then I'm not asking you to donate. You need the money just as much. If you can, please share this post or a link to the GoFundMe and help get others to donate.

But if you opened your wallet today and a $1 bill flew out and you wouldn't chase it, then maybe you can donate $1 to her fund. If you regularly spend $5 on fun things at the grocery store checkout, or you wouldn't think twice about buying a $4.99 toy for your kid, then maybe you can donate that $5. Just once. If you think nothing of spending $10 for movies to rent for the weekend ... well, you get the idea.

If you're living the good life and a $100 dinner is a cheap date, then maybe you can afford a little more.

You might be thinking that you don't know Janet, so how do you know this is real ... well, how do you know anything is real? How do you know that if you donate $10 to a charity at Christmas, that the $10 goes to the needy and not to the board of directors? You don't. So don't give more than you're comfortable with, whether it's $1 or $50 or any other number that feels right to you.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE GO FUND ME SITE.

In order to help spread the word on this fundraising drive, I'm offering an autographed copy of my cookbook, Make Ahead Bread, to one lucky winner. You don't need to donate to enter to win. You don't need to enter to donate.

A few of the optional entries on the giveaway are for sharing links to the funding campaign. They're optional. But I do urge you to share. Please.

I may be offering extra books if donations entries and/or donations exceed my expectations.

Pimento Cheese the Cookbook #giveaway

The topic of  Pimento Cheese the Cookbook by Perre Coleman Magness, is ... I'm sure you'll guess ... pimento cheese.

There are a whole lot of variations of pimento cheese recipes, but that's not all. There are recipes that have the flavor of pimento cheese, like the deviled egg recipe that you'll find on Cookistry.

There are also biscuits, waffles, chicken tenders, shrimp and grits, soup. cheesesteak sandwiches, and a whole lot more of pimento-y cheesey goodness.

One thing I really like about this book is that the recipes that incorporate the flavor of pimento cheese don't have you start by making one of the pimento cheese recipes. They include the amount of cheese, pimento, and other ingredients you need for that particular recipe.

And that means you won't have to make a tub of pimento cheese in order to use a portion of it in a recipe. Not that I couldn't find a use for a tub or three of pimento cheese.

This is a small book - in dimensions and pages. But that's fine. This isn't a topic that needs a lot of space, and 50 recipes is plenty - there's no fluff here, where you think the author tossed in a lame recipe or two, just to fill the pages. It's just the right size and has enough recipes to make or to inspire you to make something else.

How would you like a copy of your very own? Yup, I've got one to give away!

I received a copy of the book from the publisher, who inexplicably sent a second copy; I will cover mailing costs to the winner.

Mastering Pasta by Marc Vetri

I'll admit it. I love pasta. So I was pretty excited to get my hands on Mastering Pasta by Marc Vetri. The tagline is "The Art and Practice of Handmade Pasta, Gnocchi, and Risotto."

Well, okay then.

The book delivered everything I expected, and more. Along with the usual suspects - ravioli, spaghetti, and gnocchi - there are types of pasta that I never heard of before. Rotolo, for example, is filled and rolled like a jellyroll, and then sliced and baked. An egg yolk goes in the middle and it's baked just a little longer, until the egg is cooked but still runny. It sounds amazing, and the photos made me even more intrigued.

Another pasta starts with a batter that's cooked like a crepe and then cut and boiled. I never would have thought of it.

Or how about this: Gnocchi made with cabbage. Have you ever???

The cabbage gnocchi is on the short list for recipes I need to make, for sure. It might be the first one I make, actually. It's familiar and unusual at the same time.

And then we come to the risotto recipes. How about a tomato risotto? That sounds divine.

There are also more familiar pastas, like standard semolina pasta and egg pasta. There are instructions for making cut pastas, extruded pastas, filled pastas and formed pastas. Pretty much any kind of pasta you can imagine. The farfalle look like they'd be easy and impressive, while some of the other folded, formed, and filled pastas look like they'd take a bit more practice.

When it comes to filled pastas, there are these crazy things called Doppio Ravioli that are like double ravioli, filled side-by-side in long strips. That's cool to begin with, but these twinned ravioli are filled with two compatible fillings.

Wow. That would be impressive for dinner, right?

It's not just about the pasta dough, though. There are recipes for fillings and sauces as well, so each recipe is a complete dish. And then there are suggested pasta variations for most of them, so you know you can use penne instead of maltagliati with a particular sauce.

And did I mention flavored pasta? Yup, there are pastas with added herbs and flavorings, too, with helpful hints if you want to try your own flavors.

So, in short, this isn't just about how to cook pasta dishes. And it's not just about making noodles. It's a comprehensive book that'll get you making fresh pasta for dinner from start to finish.

Oh, but it gets better than that. Because of a glitch in the shipping system, I got not one, but two copies of the book, and the publisher doesn't want the extra back. So I'm giving my extra copy away. I will pay for priority mail shipping; I'm not responsible for mis-delivered mail or clumsy handling en route.

Good luck!