The Figs Table: More Than 100 Recipes for Pizza, Pastas, Salads, and Desserts

You will find the whimsical: Fennel, Watermelon, and Black Olive Salad with Feta Cheese, which comes of English musing about agro dolce and melon paired with prosciutto. You will find the sublime: Roasted Beets with Walnut Gorgonzola Dressing. And in between, you are sure to stop at some very basic treasures like White Bean Soup, Black Bean Chili, a lasagna to end them all, Sweet Potato Polenta, Roasted Fennel and Shrimp Risotto, and then on into those pizzas to die for.

English uses the Mediterranean like a springboard for his flavor imagination. This cookbook is his dismount. Any judge would give him the highest points possible. --Schuyler Ingle