Lidia’s Celebrate Like an Italian: 220 Foolproof Recipes That Make Every Meal a Party

The latest from powerhouse Bastianich (Lidia’s Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine), written with daughter Manuali, highlights an issue that plagues authors of Italian cookbooks: with so many restaurants and cookbooks and television shows focusing on Italian food, how does an author come up with anything new? The answer in this pleasant, albeit unremarkable, book is to approach Italian food with an eye to entertaining. Recipes are as solid as one might expect from the owner of restaurants in three cities, co-owner of Eataly, and host of a PBS show. Bastianich and Manuali make a game effort as they include a recipe for fresh tomato sauce in their instructions for chicken parmigiana and fill ravioli with Bartlett pears and cheese, a favorite at her New York City restaurant Felidia. A polenta layer cake with Gorgonzola cheese is clever, and sprinkling fried eggs on a bed of pancetta and apples with fennel powder is a nice touch. Fans will find several of her familiar recipes here—such as spaghetti with Bolognese sauce, and stuffed mushrooms—but expanded in order to serve larger parties. While mother and daughter sprinkle these pages with somewhat generic suggestions for events ranging from formal wedding dinners to a kids’ pizza parties, there isn’t much to distinguish this from dozens of other books—including the previous 11 written by Bastianich. (Oct.)