(Review) Canal House Cooking Volume 7

Title: Canal House Cooking Volume 7 La Dolce Vita
Authors: Melissa Hamilton & christopher Hirsheimer
Pub Date: January 2012
Publisher: Canal House
Pages: 128

Source: I received a copy of this from Andrews McMeel Publishing for a honest and sincere review. Thank You Andrews McMeel for sending this.

About the book:
Welcome to the Canal House—our studio, workshop, dining room, office, kitchen, lair, lab, and atelier devoted to good ideas and good work relating to the world of food. We write, photograph, design, and paint, but in our hearts we both think of ourselves as cooks first.
How did we get here? Neither of us set out to make careers in the food world. Actually there wasn’t much of a “foodie” world when we both started. But our deep interests led us down paths that unfolded in front of us.

We had worked with each other as food editors in the magazine world. We traveled the globe in search of essential and authentic recipes, sliding into banquettes in famous restaurants, meeting big deal chefs, and even cooking in far-flung home kitchens. It was great and exciting. But our work took us both away from our families, our homes, and our gardens, away from what really matters, after all.

We live in little towns across the river from each other, one in New Jersey, the other in Pennsylvania. So we decided to join forces. We share similar backgrounds, having grown up in big families where food came first. In a time that seems like a million years ago now, our aproned grandmothers nurtured us with wholesome, comforting food—buttermilk pancakes drenched in salty butter and maple syrup. Our mothers were glamorous. They loved parties and cocktails and restaurants and brunch with Bloody Marys—food was exciting. Last night’s Chinese “takeout” would show up at breakfast reheated with two poached eggs on top. Both of us have deep food memories and large legacies to uphold.

We found our loft studio in an old redbrick warehouse downriver from where we live. A beautiful lazy canal runs alongside the building. One hundred years ago, mules plodding along the tow path hauled provision-ladened barges up and down the state. In warm weather, we provision-ladened barges up and down the state. In warm weather, we throw open the French doors and the voices of the people walking or or fishing below float up to us. We plant herbs in our window boxes and grow tomatoes in pots on our wrought-iron balcony. In the winter we build fires in the Franklin wood stove to keep cozy when its snowy and gray outside.

The Canal House has a simple galley kitchen. Two small “apartment-size” stoves sit snugly side by side against a white tiled wall. An old wooden carpenter’s worktable with a little sink at one end is our long counter and pots hang from a rack suspended above it. We have a dishwasher, but we find ourselves preferring to hand wash the dishes so we can look out of the tall window next to the sink and see the ducks swimming in the canal or watch the raindrops splashing into the water.

The town around us is a small American river town. A noon whistle still blows and church bells chime—no kidding! There is a drug store around the corner. Across the street is an old hardware store, and the best bar in the world is right down the alley.

And every day we cook. Starting the morning with coffee or cups of sweet milky tea, we tell each other what we made for dinner the night before. In the middle of the day we stop our work, set the table simply with paper napkins, and have lunch. So it came naturally to write down what we cook.

The Canal House Cooking series is a seasonal collection of our favorite recipes—home cooking by home cooks for home cooks. With a few exceptions, we use ingredients that are readily available and found in most markets in most towns throughout the United States. All the recipes are easy to prepare, all completely doable for the novice and experienced cook alike. We want to share with you as fellow cooks, our love of food and all its rituals. The everyday practice of simple cooking and the enjoyment of eating are two of the greatest pleasures in life.

This volume celebrates the bounty of fall and the festive holiday season with delicious Italian dishes, some classic, some reinterpreted Canal House style.

I always love when I get a new cookbook in the mail to review because that means a whole bunch of new recipes to try. We love trying new foods and some are a hit and some are a miss but its nice to try something new.

I love the cover of the book because it looks like its a fancy looking journal.

This is the first time that I heard about Canal House cookbooks and now I am really cuirous about them because if they are anything like this one I am sure I would enjoy it. Who doesn’t like to try something new every now and then?

This is cookbook number seven in the series and its based on a recent month long journey that Melissa and Christopher took in Tuscany.

I got to make a few recipes from the cookbooks so far and our favorites have been the Simple Tomato Sauce (you can use this with pasta and lasagne), Ragu Bolognese (which I modified a bit because there was some ingredients we didn’t like and we enjoyed it) and finally a delicious Apple Cake.

I think if you like trying new things or Italian cooking then this is the book for you. Interested in buying the book but would like to see a sample first, well then click on this. After seeing the sample I am sure your mouth will be watering.