On Monday 27 August, we’re having dinner with Nino Zoccali, one of Sydney’s finest Italian chefs to celebrate the release of his book Pasta Artigiana and to celebrate Italy’s culinary gift to the world - pasta!

Nino Zoccali, a second-generation Italian chef is chef owner of Pendolino and La Rosa restaurants in The Strand Arcade in Sydney’s CBD.   Nino opened his first Italian restaurant in Margaret River at the age of 25 and has been at the forefront of traditional/authentic Italian fine dining in Australia ever since.

During his career he has worked at a ranging of leading Sydney-based Italian restaurants and was the founding head chef at Otto Ristorante Italiano.  He is a founding member of CIRA – the Council of Italian Restaurants in Australia – and active as an olive oil judge.

Pasta Artigiana: simple to extraordinary shares a lifetime of irresistible recipes – from indulgent filled pasta to hearty soups and even pasta-based desserts.  There is a recipe for every occasion, from a classic spaghetti alla napoletana through to a refined sweet pea ravioli with gorgonzola cream, as well as a range of versatile pasta doughs, sauces and broths.  Chapters included dried pasta, fresh pasta, filled pasta, baked pasta and vegetarian pasta - even dessert pasta!  As practical as it is beautiful, Pasta Artigiana is an important companion for anyone who loves to cook and eat pasta.

You can read a few chapters here (or buy it as an ebook):

Please come and join us for dinner celebrating pasta at every course!

Nino will present 3 stunning pasta dishes/courses and take time out to tell us all about his love for artisanal and traditional pasta.

(and why are we having a Pasta dinner at a Croatian restaurant?  Well, Ino, the chef patron of Il Dalmatino, and Nino are great friends; so much so that Ino’s recipe for gnocchi is in the book!  And if you remember your Shakespeare, the Dalmatian Coast was long ago Ilyria - a quasi Italian/Roman province…)

When: Monday 27 August 2012  7pm

Where: Il Dalmatino, 280 Bay Street Port Melbourne

Price: $65 per head + drinks

To Book: call 03 9645 6584, email [email protected] or book online at www.dalmatino.com.au

Since we saw the early review copy of Charlotte Wood’s Love & Hunger: thoughts on the gift of food back in March, we have been eagerly awaiting its release instore so we could share it with you.

Usually new releases are either full of glossy pictures with celebrity chefs festooned on their covers delivering sometimes an over sumptuous visual feast or text rich, almost dour, practical tomes designed to educate rather than titilate.

To our surprise and pleasure, Love & Hunger is neither.  Almost oddly positioned as neither a cookbook nor a polemical statement, Love & Hunger manages to be a cookbook for the kitchen, a gentle read for the bedside table and a positive affirmation of the pleasure of cooking for family & friends.

Charlotte Wood is a highly regarded Australian novelist and journalist based in Sydney for whom food and its place at her table with family and friends is one of the most important parts of her life.  This collection of 27 essays gently and sensitively explores the rich complexity and spiritual sustenance that good food with family & friends imparts to our lives.  Each chapter  explores, a different aspect of ‘the gift of food’ with a number of recipes ‘attached’; all of them good, none of them complex and many wonderfully comforting.

Love & Hunger is beautifully and simply written (as one would expect from an author with such critical recognition; another of her novels, Animal People is currently listed for the 2012 Miles Franklin Award).  There were many moments when reading, we nodded in heated agreement with the almost commonsense views espoused.  As one other reviewer noted, it’s rare for a cookbook to move you to tears; be warned you may succumb.  Wood’s scholarship is also in evidence (she is currently a PhD candidate looking at food in literature) as many of her accurate observations are elegantly woven into a gentle but compelling argument

If there is a criticism to be made, we would only want more….

The title of the book comes from this paragraph, from MFK Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me - which is the epigraph Charlotte has used for this book.

“It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it … and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied … and it is all one.”

Love & Hunger is published by Allen & Unwin and is available as a paperback for $29.95 instore or online and as an ebook from www.ebooksforcooks.com.au for $9.99

To our eye (and palate), Matt Wilkinson’s Mr Wilkinson’s Favourite Vegetables is one of the cookbooks of 2012.

Matt is a Yorkshire born, British trained, and now Melbourne based Chef and gardener who cooks at his restaurant Pope Joan in inner Melbourne.

Matt’s strong views on the importance of eating locally produced and seasonally grown vegetables are deftly and amusingly put. Scattered amongst the 24 or so chapters on common and less common vegetables (Nettles anyone?) are Matt’s childhood, family (most infamously with his Nan) and professional encounters with what are now his favourite vegetables (or at least 23 of them!). Matt is an ambassador for the Victorian Farmer’s Market Association and his committment to local producers and regional cuisine shines through. Each chapter begins with useful and practical information about cooking and growing or sourcing each vegetable. Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower and even Zucchini are redeemed by simple beautiful dishes. We particularly liked the ‘Salad of Brussels Sprout Leaves, Mozzarella, White Anchovies’, Salad of Cauliflower, Smoked Salmon & Strawberry’ the ‘Frozen Vanilla Syrup-coated Fennel’ and the ‘Salad of Radish, Figs, Walnuts & Blue Cheese’.

Reflected in his Yorkshire upbringing and classical training, Matt’s dishes are mostly British/European or Mediterranean in style and perfectly suited to casual eating, shared plates or even informal restuarants. Despite Matt’s highly regarded fine dining background, this is not a restaurant book. Both beginner and competent cooks will be rewarded as the dishes are never complicated, but there is enough innovation to suit almost anyone. Matt’s plating is elegant but casual and his dishes light but driven by flavour. Lovers of recipes by Yotam Ottolenghi, Karen Martini or Anna Hansen will find this a perfect addition to their kitchen library. Although Matt also champions locally and carefuly raised meat, vegetarians will also be rewarded with innovative and interesting dishes throughout.

Mention must also be made of the beautiful matt photography by Jacqui Melville, and the striking personal design by Studio Racket; we particularly like the uncommon coptic binding and the graphic vignettes

Highly Recommended