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'Carmine's Family-Style Cookbook: More Than 100 Classic Italian Dishes to Make at Home'
Recipes by Michael Ronis with Mary Goodbody
Photographs by Alex Martinez
St. Martin's Press -- 2008
Buy it on Amazon

In the increasingly refined and innovative world of New York Italian restaurants, Carmine's remains proudly devoted to its red-sauce roots. It's a loud place with large portions and a complete lack of pretension: you'd just as soon find a foam or amuse bouche on its menu as you would a loaf of Irish soda bread or bowl of borscht. The focus is on Southern Italian food like grandma used to make -- think meatballs the size of a baby's head, shrimp scampi and garlic bread, not bruschetta.

It follows that the restaurant's laid-back, welcoming style would translate to its companion cookbook: "We hope," the introduction states, that the book's pages "will soon be stained with red sauce, dribbles of olive oil and sticky fingerprints, all happy accidents as you discover our recipes."

This is a cookbook meant for weeknight family dinners and large gatherings, or any event, really, that calls for large helpings of comfort food. Flipping through it is a bit like visiting the Italian American Culinary Hall of Fame: Look, it's Meatball Heroes! And over there, Penne Alla Vodka! Long time, no see, Shrimp Fra Diavolo! They're all here, and they're all eager to please.

See what we tested and whether the book's worth buying after the jump.