Jennifer Jeffrey, Writer & Editor

Got Crab? (the cookbook is out!)

Guess what just hit the shelves? The CRAB cookbook!

CRAB: Buying, Cooking, Cracking was just released by Ten Speed Press. I'm delighted with the production quality - the photos are beautiful, and it contains just 35 recipes - enough to give you lots of options, not too many to make you feel overwhelmed.

I'm a huge crab fan, especially since Dungeness crab is sustainably harvested, and therefore doesn't provoke spasms of guilt upon consumption. Over the next few weeks, I'll post a few crab tips & recipes & a photo or two. In November, I'm going to sail out on the Bay on a crab boat to see how these rosy pink critters are hauled in and brought to shore.

In the meanwhile, I've got three CRAB cookbooks (signed by Andrea Froncillo and myself) to give away to the first three people who e-mail me with the name of your favorite crab dish. Go for it!

Adventures of an Italian Food Lover: Bellinis in Venice

When I heard about Faith Willinger’s new cookbook, Adventures of an Italian Food Lover (With Recipes from 254 of my Very Best Friends), I was immediately intrigued.

What interested me most was that the format of the book; rather than focusing on a particular way of cooking, or using the standard “Starters, Main Courses and Desserts” format, Faith offers a glimpse into her adventures around Italy over the past few decades. I'm all about stories, and this cookbook weaves one story into another. Faith has traveled widely and has eaten well along the way, and here she introduces readers to people she has met in towns from Sicily to Venice, from hoteliers to artisan cheesemakers and restaurateurs. Some of them are charmingly depicted in quirky watercolor portraits done by Faith’s sister Suzanne. The whole book has a friendly, informal tone, as if you were peeking into someone’s journal.

It smartly includes contact information for many of the places mentioned, making it one of the resources I’ll be using when I plan my next trip to Italy.

Meanwhile, I’m dreaming of my first trip to Italy, and especially of the first stop on that trip, which was Venice.