Dare to Cook—Seasonal Italian Cuisine: Winter

Chef Tom Small is a soft-spoken, practical teacher (no gimmicks or catchphrases) who here offers effective step-by-step demonstrations of recipes that require no exotic ingredients or difficult techniques. A native Californian who's currently executive chef at a restaurant outside Seattle, Small prepares five antipasti (appetizers), two pasta dishes served as first courses, two entrees, and two desserts in a home-kitchen setting. Recipes include giardiniera (vegetables pickled in water and vinegar), a beet salad, a mussel salad with olives and oranges, butternut squash lasagna, chicken with lemons and roasted vegetables, pork tenderloin with garlic and sage, flourless chocolate cake, and caramel apple bread pudding. Small also demonstrates simple tips for efficiently chopping vegetables, peeling fruits, and cutting up a whole chicken. Individual recipes may be selected from a menu, and ingredients are listed onscreen (as well as on a text paper insert). The other titles in the Dare to Cook—Seasonal Italian Cuisine series are Spring, Summer, and Fall. Highly recommended. Aud: P. (M. Puffer-Rothenberg)