Bastianich - Lidias Family Table

As you can see from the cover, Im not the only cook in this book! Everyone in my family, of every age, has contributed to it in countless ways. And to each of them I want to express my love, gratitude, and happiness for the family effort that has brought this volume to completion. It is a true expression of our life as a family at our table.

The support and help I receive from businesses and individuals in the food and restaurant communities, the publishing world, and from my own staff have also been invaluable in the creation of this book. I heartily thank my friends at Colavita USA, Cuisinart, and Palm Bay Imports, and the producers of Grana Padano for their generous donation of products and equipment required in the hundreds of hours of recipe developmentand for their longtime support of my projects.

The merchants that I and my book team turned to for the raw materials for our marathon cooking sessions are also worthy of recognition. We are fortunate that markets large and small across this country are responding to informed consumer demands for fresh, flavorful, nourishing food to feed our families. To my friends at Marino Fish Market in Astoria and Citarella in Manhattan, my thanks for exemplary seafood. We were delighted as well by the quality and variety of food we found at Fairway Markets, Gourmet Garage, and Whole Foods Market in New York City, and Stop and Shop supermarkets in both New York and Massachusetts, among others. Fosters Market in Greenfield, Massachusetts, provided many fine products for recipe and photo sessions, particularly their meats, cut to order with good cheer on short notice.

As an advocate of regional agriculture and a lover of really fresh food, I am glad that I can thank by name many small family farms who directly supplied us with their superb home-grown products. Many of these are in the Connecticut River valley of western Massachusetts (where David Nussbaum did much of our shopping) and I wish to salute the Hibbard Farm of Hadley, for their mouthwatering asparagus in the spring and tasty parsnips in the fall; also, the Butynski Farm of Greenfield, the Golonka Farm of Hatfield, and the Ciesluk Farm and Bars Farm in Deerfield, for sweet corn, tomatoes, and all manner of summer produce. I was delighted by the flavor of the naturally raised birds from the Diemand Turkey Farm in Wendell, Massachusetts. And our desserts were inspired by wild blueberries from The Benson Place in Heath and the apples, peaches, plums, pears, and quince (and ciders) from Clarkdale Fruit Farm in Deerfield. Appreciation to Margaret Schnall of Hatfield and her flock of hens for dozens of eggs in every size and color, as delicious as they are pretty. The Westminster (Vermont) Cheese Company supplied us with excellent fresh ricotta and rich butter from the milk of their grass-fed Jersey cows. And all of our days in Vermont, and several recipes here, were sweetened by the maple syrup produced by John Reynolds on his farm in Stannard, Vermont.

Many individuals labored to make this book a reality and as beautiful and big as it is. As always, I am indebted to my agent Jane Dystel for everything she has done for me; thanks also to her partner Miriam Goderich.

At Alfred A. Knopf, my publisher, I know that Judith Jones brings a superb team together to work on my manuscript. I want to thank assistant editor Ken Schneider for his unflagging and expert effort to keep everything together and his good cheer at all times, Carol Carson, who so understood the essence of this book in creating the cover, and Cassandra Pappas for the lively and expressive interior design. Kathleen Fridella for her careful work coordinating the copyediting and Tracy Cabanis for overseeing production, and Paul Bogaards and Sheila OShea, who always do such a great job promoting my books.

And to my dear friend Christopher Hirsheimer, whose photography I love, thank you for capturing the spirit of my family and the essence of my food. All with natural light.

In my own office and downstairs in Felidiain the dining room and kitchenI thank all who keep our flagship sailing successfully. I would not have been able to work on this book and other projects were it not for you: Executive chef Fortunato Nicotra, for Formula Uno performance in the kitchen and helping me on those special needs for the book; Genji Ridley and Mario Pincic, for their commitment in managing the dining room in my absence; and Shelly Burgess, for keeping me in line with my business and special appearance commitments.

In particular, I want to thank Miguelina Polanco for coordinating the many cooking and photo sessions for this book and for organizing the manuscript as well as handling all my other affairs while I was on book duty. Though the cooking for this book was done at home, we could count on emergency help and recipe supplies from my sous-chef Todd Curtis, and our cooks, whenever we asked.

A Special Thanks for a Very Special Team

I want in particular to recognize a group which made such an essential and unique contribution to this book that it acquired the name Team Lidia". Almost all of the books contentsboth the recipes and my commentaryemerged from two dozen long, exciting days in the kitchen, from January to October 2003. On those days, I would meet my team in the kitchen early in the morning and we would cook for ten to fourteen hours.

With the support of Team Lidia, at each session I perfected the group of family dishes I wanted to see in the book and at the same time I explored and experimented with new ideas and ingredients. The team provided the many hands, eyes, and senses that allowed me to work on as many as fifteen different dishes in one day. The team also supplied and prepped the food and helped me keep an eye on a six-burner stovetop covered with simmering soup pots, often while two or three casseroles baked in the oven. The team constantly cleaned and kept order in my kitchen at home, and in Judiths kitchen when we worked at her home in Vermont and, for the first sessions, at her apartment in Manhattan.