Lidia's Family Table: More Than 200 Fabulous Recipes to Enjoy Every Day-With Wonderful Ideas for Variations and Improvisations

When you see Lidia's shows on Public Television, if you're like me, I drool over most of the dishes and run to the food store to buy the ingredients to prepare it that night. Yes, I'm a guy and I love to cook....and my family and friends love the fact that I cook, based on their waist lines and the numbers that show up at our dinner table! I have all of Lidia's books because she is straight forward in her approach to creating a meal using similar technics from dish to dish. The way the recipe is presented helps in your preparations...a list of ingredients, the order in which to cook the different components, and the final prep to get it to the table hot and fresh, even a recommendation of an appropriate wine. But one of the biggest factors in me liking her books is that she doesn't include weird ingredients that you just can't find in a food store, everything is accessible locally. Then, once you get comfortable with her style, you mix different parts of different recipes to create you own unique meal for the table, which is very gratifying when your guests love them. Being Italian, we always had our own taste based on how our grandmothers and mothers cooked for us over the years, but Lidia really expanded my tastes to include dishes that when I serve them to my 91yo mother, she says she hadn't had that since she was a child in Italy! Warm family style dishes that will leave a lasting memory. The 3 F's....Food, Family, and Friends! Lidia will bring that all together for you to experience.....highly recommended for the beginner, experienced and professional chef.

I watch Lidia’s show on PBS whenever I get a chance. I love the way she involves her family in the dinners she creates and I saw this book for a great price on Amazon and just had to get it. I was not disappointed.Lidia is a great teacher. This is not your normal cookbook with recipes and pictures. This book has all of that but it also has how to do it, why you do it, and what it should taste like when you are done. For example, for her Risotto recipe she takes you through all the steps and explains why you do them and what the results should be if you followed directions. The recipe is a good three pages long.This book is perfect for the novice cook as well as the experienced cook who may not cook Italian much. I love it and it will be a part of my cooking repartee in the future.

I love to read recipes with history and culture. Lidia is wonderful and the quality of the hard over is great. I will get more of her books.

I love her easy to follow recipes

The recipes are really down home Italian ( and I am Italian), not just the traditional lasagna and meatballs. The ones I have tried so far are just delicious. Her family input and family pictures are a heartwarming bonus. I will be checking out her other books!

If you love to cook, you'll love this cookbook. The directions are a breeze to follow, with photographs of some of the techniques. The recipes are fab, and there is room to be creative. Being a fan of the PBS series, it's great to see a show, then be able to go to the book and re-create the recipe. Generally, after seeing a cooking show, making the shown meal isn't really in the cards. But, like Delia Smith's series and books, Lidia gives the same quality and access to her art. I highly recommend this book.

These are wonderful recipes with practical tips on preparation, substitutions, with descriptions on how a recipe should look and taste. These are very down to earth recipes that don't require huge amount of pre-preparation. While they are mostly recipes for families of 4 - 6, they are easily adaptable for families of two, or for a single person with leftovers for a second meal.

I have a few shelves of cookbooks. Many are OK, but Lidia's books are all superb. She breaks down the recipes into basic easy to do steps. They are clearly written and the dishes are so tasty. This book is good for beginners and well seasoned chefs. She does not give you an endless list of ingredients, rather she builds flavors with a few ingredients that mesh together and give you meals to savor and remember.Peter McIntyre

I have quite a lot of cooking books and I’am normally an Ottolenghi fanboy …But Lidia has brought me back to the Italian cuisine. I had already the feeling when I watched her shows that she knows so much about Italian cuisine and she shares her knowledge.Why is the book so good..In my opinion Italian cuisine is somewhat less complicated if you compare it with French, Jewish and Arabian food… still I’am often surprised how this cuisine can easily compete in taste and quality with the ones mentioned before.Lidia gives me the answer why that is so ..it’s all about the love you give to every single ingredient.I can explain this with one example of her recipes.Pasta with tuna can usually be found in almost every decent cookbook. It covers probably two pages in the cookbook. One page for the photo and another one for the ingredients and the recipe.But in Lidias book it covers 4 pages and she has no picture at all….At first everyone might think that no picture is not good… but from my point of view I prefer more Information about the recipe and the ingredients than having a picture about the result of my work.Lidia explains on the 2 pages how you create your own tuna all‘olio instead of buying a can with tuna. And she explains the difference in taste and where it comes from. She explains what pasta is best suited for the sauce and many other valuable information. I’am sure even beginners will have the best access to Italian cuisine with this book.Bravo, Lidia … 10 out of 10

Great book. The recipes are traditional and easy to prepare. You don’t need lots of unusual ingredients and there are lots of fresh ingredients used. If you enjoy good, traditional Italian food, this recipe book is for you.

Not a regular type cookbook, with recipes, pictures, and list of ingredients and directions....it's all over the place. Disappointed. I find the book frustrating to use.

Great book. My mother inlaw loves it. She watches her show on TV all the time.

The recipes from one of her TV series