Italian Food, Jonathan Waxman's Way: Cookbook Spotlight

by Nanette Maxim, Posted Apr 18th 2011 @ 3:00PM

When chef Jonathan Waxman throws open the glass garage doors at his restaurant Barbuto (in Manhattan's West Village) on a warm spring afternoon on the far side of lunch hour, and you've just eaten a forkful of pillowy gnocchi with spinach and almonds, you'd be inhuman if you didn't turn to your mates and say, "Ah, life is good." Waxman's wood-fired oven is throwing flames, and the silver-haired chef (and former "Top Chef Masters" contestant) might himself be delivering one of his signature roast chickens with salsa verde to another bunch of customers, all of whom seem to be smiling. Barbuto just does that to you.

Jonathan Waxman has always done things his way at Barbuto -- simple, delicious, playful, and very Italian. That he isn't Italian doesn't mean a thing. He cooks like a Roman grandmother, says his business partner Fabrizio Ferri. And in his new cookbook, Italian, My Way, he shows us how to play with the classic dishes he loves (such as linguine with wild mushrooms or pizza with pancetta, tomatoes, burrata, and scallions), and amp up others, spun from a good forage or a good day at the fish market (warm dandelion greens with scrambled eggs and chives; strozzapreti with octopus, red wine, and onions).

Introduced by Waxman's chatty, informative notes, the recipes, from a simple pizza with special JW pizza dough, to a twisted version of tagliatelle alle scampi, to grandmother-inspired biscotti with chocolate, read like Waxman's gabbing with you over a cup of espresso. There are stories about his days at Chez Panisse and about catching trout from a pond on command during a restaurant stint in France, about why he owns a bone saw (in a terrific "Kitchen Tools" section) and about the unadulterated pleasures of budino (chocolate pudding).

Speaking of desserts, Waxman opens his "Dolci" section with a sentence I dare you to read without salivating: "Picture a ripe peach, split in two, drizzled with peach-blossom honey and served with a dollop of peach sorbetto." The desserts here exude a sweet simplicity, and intense flavor, from a rich gelato gianduja to a rustic lemon-raspberry crostata.

Cooking from Italian, My Way is a little like sitting down to that springtime lunch at Barbuto -- you never want it to end.

Filed Under: Chefs, Cookbook Spotlight
Tags: cookbooks, italian food, Jonathan Waxman, jonathan+waxman+cookbook, jonathan+waxman+cookbooks, jonathan+waxman+pizza+dough+recipe, jonathanwaxmancookbook, jonathanwaxmancookbooks, jonathanwaxmanpizzadoughrecipe