Rating: 
Summary: mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Review: After seeing this cookbook it's hard to decide what is more beautiful - the recipes or the graphic design. I just finished the 'portabello mushroom fixed like a steak' recipe and it was spectacular. Can't wait to try more! Although the recipes are a little more complicated than most cookbooks, I would recommend it for anyone who is passionate about food. It is certainly my new favorite.
Rating:
Summary: mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Review: After seeing this cookbook it's hard to decide what is more beautiful - the recipes or the graphic design. I just finished the 'portabello mushroom fixed like a steak' recipe and it was spectacular. Can't wait to try more! Although the recipes are a little more complicated than most cookbooks, I would recommend it for anyone who is passionate about food. It is certainly my new favorite.
Rating:
Summary: Recipes that taste like the restaurant dishes..........
Review: An excellent cookbook for someone who loves to cook. The recipes I've tried turn out very much like the dishes served at the restaurant. The recipes are easy to follow but can be complicated; not for a novice cook. The photographs are beautiful and the suggestions to adjust the dish according to the climate/season are useful. This book continues to be one of the ones I always reach for when wondering what to make for a special dinner.
Rating:
Summary: Exquisite cooking by Seasonal Ingredient
Review: For long, outstanding chefs have encouraged us to shop and get the very freshest ingredients of the season, and then cook around them.Here a master chef California Wine style aids us with just such a presentation of the four seasons based on produce of that season. As I just purchased this and am in winter, tried the winter dishes and achieved spectacular results without extreme fuss. Flavors are intense and bold. Lemon-baked Sea Bass and Spinach Salad and Pumkin Polenta with Lamb Stew have certainly warmed up the winter blast at our table. Format is wide, broad book, usually flanked by full-page photo of presentation next to recipe. Love this format since it lays so wonderfully on the counter cooking and is not tiny print. This is truly a cookbook to go through the seasons with, cooking excellent, intensely flavored gourmet Italian, Meditterrean food.
Rating:
Summary: Buy it now
Review: His PBS show is incredible, his recipes are to die for, and he is gorgeous to boot. What other reasons are there for buying this book?
Rating:
Summary: A new classic
Review: I own over a 100 cookbooks. Generally after a couple of recipes I never touch the book again. However the Tra Vigne is the exception. I've cooked more than half of the recipes in the book and each one has been worth repeating. Any fan of Italian cooking seriously needs to include this book in their collection.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful book, I can't wait to dig into it.
Review: I've been a big fan of the Tra Vigne restaurant for years. It's a fun place with fantastic food, and fun events such as wine tastings. I swear it has the best smelling food of any restaurant anywhere. It's delicious torture to wait for your food and get whiffs of the entrees going by.
It was with this excited expectation that I opened this book. And although I just received it as a birthday gift, I'm anxious to dig and try to recreate some of the fantstic food I've experienced in Michael's restaurant.
I can tell you already that this cookbook has a wonderful layout. For example, the table of contents (usually dreadfully dull) is a beautiful display of graphic design. Along one side are the seasons, and along the top different types of food. It's an unusual and neat way of showing this information and immediately leads the cook to think of seasonal meals and menus.
Some of the recipes in the book look surprisingly complex so this isn't a volume for beginners. But if they can help me recreate the great meals I've had in the restaurant without needing to travel to St. Helena they will be worth the extra effort.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful book, I can't wait to dig into it.
Review: I've been a big fan of the Tra Vigne restaurant for years. It's a fun place with fantastic food, and fun events such as wine tastings. I swear it has the best smelling food of any restaurant anywhere. It's delicious torture to wait for your food and get whiffs of the entrees going by.
It was with this excited expectation that I opened this book. And although I just received it as a birthday gift, I'm anxious to dig and try to recreate some of the fantstic food I've experienced in Michael's restaurant.
I can tell you already that this cookbook has a wonderful layout. For example, the table of contents (usually dreadfully dull) is a beautiful display of graphic design. Along one side are the seasons, and along the top different types of food. It's an unusual and neat way of showing this information and immediately leads the cook to think of seasonal meals and menus.
Some of the recipes in the book look surprisingly complex so this isn't a volume for beginners. But if they can help me recreate the great meals I've had in the restaurant without needing to travel to St. Helena they will be worth the extra effort.
Rating:
Summary: The true tale of a meat lover's conversion
Review: I've had the Tra Vigne Cookbook for a year now, and I use it regularly. It's an attractive book, with beautiful photos and surprisingly intriguing introductions to the recipes. It's hard to stop browsing once you open the book, and it's harder to close the book without doing some cooking. The dishes are fantastic. The Chicken with Roasted Lemon and Rosemary Sauce is a favorite, as is the Fusilli Michelangelo. (Read the intro to either of these dishes and try to resist cooking them.) The book is arranged seasonally, with chapters on essential ingredients for each season. Spring ingredients include asparagus, garlic, peas, and potatoes. Summer ingredients include corn, tomatoes, and bell peppers. And so on. I shop at a grocery store, not a farmers market, and I've had a less-than-happy relationship with vegetables since infancy, so I was skeptical of the whole seasonal-cooking thing at first. But I enjoy browsing through the new season's recipes as the year changes, and I've tried dishes and ingredients that are not usually a part of my diet. It's hard to object to broccoli when it's served in a creamy Very Green Soup sprinkled with crunchy gremolata. It would have been nice in book a subtitled "Seasons in the California Wine Country" to have more information about wine. Few recipes actually use wine and there is no advice on what wines to pair with the food. Despite the elegant presentations shown in the photos, none of the recipes are too difficult to try. They're just challenging enough for the amateur cook who likes to do a little more than the usual home cooking. The Tra Vigne Cookbook is a lot of fun, and the food is delicious.
Rating:
Summary: Michaelangelo Cooks
Review: It's very clear that The Tra Vigne Cookbook is like a rare piece of art. Michael's passion and love of cooking is present throughout the pages. This passion quickly passes on to the reader and it embraces you and wraps you inside so that you can't wait to try and prepare these fabulous foods yourself. Michael has given a gift of love to all his readers.
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