Word: babbo
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Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen (Norton) Gina DePalma, pastry chef at Mario Batali's restaurant Babbo, shares her dessert recipes, as well as her expertise on Italian culture...
...Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher (Alfred A. Knopf; 325 pages)--the book is mostly about the author, Bill Buford, a former New Yorker editor and freakishly dedicated foodie. Buford went to work as a cook at Babbo, one of seven Batali-Bastianich restaurants in Manhattan. But Batali is the book's most memorable, entertaining character. In one scene--a dinner at Batali's restaurant Lupa--Buford, his wife and Batali share at least 10 bottles of wine and a prodigious amount of food. "By the time the pastas...
Buford portrays Batali in other earthy moments--spitting on a cooktop at a Nashville, Tenn., benefit dinner (apparently to prove the cooktop was hot); asking Babbo's wine director for "two more bottles, along with your two best Mexican prostitutes"; snoring his way through a 5 a.m. taxi ride after a night out. But Heat is also a portrait of a talent who worked his way from a dishwasher in college to a small-time Greenwich Village cook to America's impresario of all foods Italian. On that Nashville trip, 32 local chefs showed up to volunteer to cook with...
Batali doesn't charge a fortune for his delectable meals. Though Babbo can easily set you back $60 a person before drinks, you can dine at his other two New York City restaurants, Esca and Lupa, for half that, which is cheap in Manhattan for top-notch meals. (One midtown restaurant offers a prix-fixe dinner...
With all his ventures, does Batali have enough time to spend in his own kitchens? He says yes, and he proves it one day at Babbo when he gets in a quiver over a cardoon (sort of a cross between celery and artichoke). "Those great spiky leaves, that bitter, dirty-weed smell..." His voice trails off as though an ordinary vegetable has left him speechless with delight. But once again, it tastes wonderful when he puts a little vinegar and olive oil on it. That's the sign of a great chef: someone who takes a dirty weed and turns...