Review of Cooking With Grace: A Step-By-Step Course In Authentic Italian Cooking (Hardcover)

I met Grace Pilato at an international cooking class. I was there because I was raised in the Betty Crocker era; I literally did not know how to cook anything but desserts. One time cooking with Grace and I was hooked.

Grace's book is so unlike other cookbooks. Usually I pick up a cookbook, try one recipe, find that it is a dud and never pick up the book again. In Grace's cookbook I can try any recipe and it will be wonderful. Some of the recipes I've made in Grace's classes, but I recently made Rolled Stuffed Salmon, a fairly complex recipe, on my own and it turned out fabulous. Because Grace's recipes have been tested repeatedly by students of her cooking classes, they are easy to follow--not to mention incredibly delicious.

The book is full of both decadent recipes as well as numerous recipes for people trying to eat more healthfully. Grace says Italians eat vegetables not because they're good for them but because they love them. You'll love them too if you try Grace's way of cooking them! Asparagus, salad dressings, marinated roasted peppers--the list goes on! I especially love the Lentil Pumpkin Soup.

I highly recommend Cooking with Grace to everyone, from experienced cooks to Betty Crocker types like me. You'll be addicted, trust me.



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Review of Bowling Across America: 50 States in Rented Shoes (Hardcover)

This is the true story of a man who does what many in their late 20's always dream about, wander with a purpose.The author is a man in his late 20s, several years into the grind of life, who experiences the death of his father.This leads him to analyze his own life and is the catalyst for an adventure his father first started but was interrupted by life (work, family etc.)Walsh's dry wit and insights keeps the narrative moving along and is what separates this from a standard tale of a "quarter life crisis."I laughed out loud on a dozen different occasions.

"Bowling..." does a wonderful job capturing the angst, dilemmas and sources of happiness that is so typical of that segment of life.Walsh does a masterful job weaving in past experiences into the present that paints a wonderful self-portrait and offers the reader ample opportunity to relate.Scattered throughout are some wonderful insights on bowling, life, family and relationships.This is a great read.




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Review of Power Play (Hardcover)

With Power Play, Joseph Finder continues the line of corporate thrillers he kicked off with the magnificent Paranoia.This thriller, though, features as much violent action as it does corporate intrigue, leaving me with the feeling that Finder was writing a thinly-veiled script for a movie blockbuster.Indeed, the similarities to Die Hard are impossible to ignore.

Jake Landry, like the Bruce Willis Die Hard hero, is supposed to represent the blue collar everyman caught in the middle of a corporate hostage crisis.Unlike the top brass who attend Hammond Aerospace's fancy off-site at a secluded lodge, Jake's a mid-level manager who's invited for reasons other than his corporate pedigree.When the management team is taken hostage and ordered to embezzle $500 million from the corporate treasury in exchange for their lives, Jake finds himself the only guy in the company who is truly worthy of alpha male posturing.

The plot barrels ahead with Jake and his ex-girlfriend Ali (who happens to have been invited to the off-site as the new CEO's special assistant) engaged in a desperate attempt to outmanuever their brutal captors.Interspered with the action are brief flashbacks to Jake's formative years, in which we learn the origins of his skill with weapons and willingness to tangle with dangerous men.The author also exploits the tension between the new female CEO and the all-male cast of senior executives.

The last third of this book is as suspenseful as anything I've read recently, although the plot teeters in a number of places on the edge of impracticability (how combat-hardened can Jake really be, anyway) and many of the characters are thinly-developed corporate stereotypes.Nonetheless I continue to admire Finder's penchant for interesting plot premises and ability to find action and adventure amidst Sarbanes-Oxley and corporate boardrooms.



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