Marcella Says...: Italian Cooking Wisdom from the Legendary Teacher's Master Classes, with 120 of Her Irresistible New Recipes

Marcella Hazan is acclaimed for her trailblazing cookbooks, but first and foremost she is a teacher. From cooking classes held in her small New York City apartment kitchen in the 1960s to the avidly sought after Master Classes she led in her beautiful Venice home, Marcella has been the authoritative guide to Italian cooking.

This much-anticipated follow-up to Marcella Cucina offers 100 new tantalizing recipes that bring Marcella's warm, conversational, and illuminating teachings into home kitchens everywhere. The legendary author and cooking teacher shares invaluable lessons in Italian cooking, including mastering traditional techniques, selecting and using ingredients, and planning and preparing complete Italian menus. Drawing on her unique ability to present each recipe as a narrative with subplots, characters, and rich history, Marcella demonstrates just how many delicious new stories she still has to tell.

"I cook for flavor," says Italian cooking authority Marcella Hazan in Marcella Says..., a gathering of her culinary wisdom with 120 recipes. "Like truth, [flavor] needs no embellishment." Fans of Hazan's marvelous cookbooks, including Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking and Marcella Cucina, will recognize in this declaration her credo--that food is best when it tastes fully of itself. To help readers achieve this result, Marcella Says... includes a "master-class" chapter that culls a lifetime of Hazan's cooking smarts, presented in the likes of "When Is it Done" (cook vegetables all the way to tenderness, she advises); "How to Cook a Pasta Sauce" (use a saucepan for long-simmering sauces, a skillet for the rapid reduction fresh sauces require); and "Herbs, Garlic, Spices, Salt, and the Pursuit of Flavor" (herbs and condiments never compensate for undersalting).

These explorations are the heart of the book, but Hazan also supplies typically attractive, easily accomplished recipes, such as Rapini and Butternut Squash Soup, Spaghetti "Rotolo" with Zucchini and Bacon, Fish Fillets Marinated and Baked with Lemon and Thyme, and Bread Pudding with Chocolate and Apples--all written with her characteristic attention to detail. Her formulas also offer asides to help readers with technical and other matters. And, of course, there is Hazan's voice, her writerly acumen. This isn't icing on the cake, but a matter of making what is understood by the author best understood by her readers. Recipes aside, Hazan's graceful thoroughness is why her cookbooks are so beloved--and so often consulted--by cooks of all caliber. --Arthur Boehm