Vintage Pellegrini: The Collected Wisdom of an American Buongustaio: Writings

A celebrated cook, winemaker and gardener, Pellegrini ( The Food Lover's Garden ) was born in Tuscany in 1904 and immigrated with his family to the U.S. at the age of nine, settling in the small Washington town of McCleary. In this anthology of brief essays, of which several are being published for the first time, Pellegrini describes the difficult existence of his peasant family in Italy, the decision to move to America, and the beginning of a new life in the Pacific Northwest. In later essays he discusses educating his children and grandchildren in the appreciation of food and wine, and gives some favorite recipes, such as one for a fish sauce using the herb puleggio. Pellegrini's style is sincere and affectionate, whether his subject is his family or a vintage bottle of homemade wine. But he often lapses into an awkward or sentimentalized prose--Freud is ``the presiding deity of the brotherhood of Shrinkers,'' while in another essay, he writes that ``as a community working together and intent on the same ends, we are, at any moment in our history, more likely to be what we had intended to become than to be something else''--and repeats himself throughout the pieces. Ingle is a freelance journalist. (Oct.)