Don Pintabona: Shared Table

By JULIETTE ROSSANT When I received Don Pintabona's new book The Shared Table: Cookng with Spirit for Family and Friends (Random House, 2005), I was expecting yet another quick-and-easy family cookbook by yet another fine dining chef. I was wrong. The Shared Table is as much culinary biography as cookbook. Don traces how he developed his cuisine, which of course includes his Italian-American roots, but also his adventures in other cuisines like Japanese, Thai and Middle Eastern. The form follows a summary style (I wonder how "letters from home" or something more personal might have read), interspersed between recipes which are by and large good home cuisine, with healthy, more challenging sides from the restaurants where he worked. The cover shows a bearded Don Pintabona in chef's jacket with a crate of green apples perched behind his shoulder. There are plenty of old family photographs in black and white and sepia (oddly, with no one identified) and plenty of color photos of the Pintabona famiglia. I enjoyed one story about working with his father at an A&P Supermarket, when he accidentally set off the fire alarm by cooking some steaks on a grill inside the store. Before the firemen arrived, he dumped all of it into the trash bins -- which promptly caught fire, too. He never admitted what he had done but learned his lesson. The recipe for Shrink-Wrap-Machine-Seared Rib Eye Sandwiches with French's Onions follows (pp. 23-24). Don offers a formal menu from the Tribeca Grill of Foie Gras with parsnips and Sour Cherries, venison with glazed root vegetables and Lingonberry sauce, poached quince with Fourme d'Ambert, and plum tart with Verbena Ice Cream. The recipes are all well explained, but I would have liked a few more photos to help me along the way (pp. 197-216), The most important part of the book is the last, Part Five. Don writes about September 11 in New York City and going home to Sicily. He came up with the idea of setting up a canteen and rest center for all the rescue workers on the Spirit of New York, a yacht moored near Ground Zero (see also accounts by Charlie Palmer and Daniel Boulud in Super Chef, pp. 73-5). He rallied some of the best chefs in New York; many also had restaurants shut by the disaster, while others just sent food, kitchen staff, and even came themselves to cook (like Charlie). After 9/11 Don felt he could not to put off a long-promised trip to Sicily with his family. He follows with some of the best recipes in the book for lovely homey dishes from Sicily like Panelle, a kind of chickpea sandwich with ricotta (pp. 316-317) and Pasta con le Sarde (pp. 321-322), Sicily's national dish. Both sound delicious and well worth trying. Previous articles: Annabel Karmel: First Meals Nigella Lawson's Feast Cook Like a Kyrgyz Personal Favorites: The Chefs of Las Vegas Anne Willen: The Good Cook Gale Gand's short+sweet More Food from Alton Brown Manju Malhi's India With Passion SOS: Baking from the Heart Madhur Jaffrey: Our Lady of India, CBE Amazon UK's Steamy Xmas Chefs All Hail Alfred Portale Agassi's Star Palate: Celebrity Chefs Chef Don Pintabona Advises Innovation Book Links: Random House Amazon.com Technorati Tags: chefs restaurants food cookbooks biography branding -> back to superchefblog