Customer Reviews
One of my all time favourite cookbooks - By: Annemarie, 05 Dec 2007 
I love this cookbook! It is not a cookbook that you would whip out on a weekday - although it is a mix of reallly easy dishes & more time consuming & advanced ones. Because of the latter I would probably not recommend it to a beginner. Some of its recipes have definitely become regulars with us.
We love the 'seasonal' approach & the recipes are alll a treat to those who like Flavour with a capital F. What I mean by that is that most recipes taste like the basic ingredients/vegetables, & not like a mix of tons of ingredients (if that makes sense). What I also mean by that is that it also provokes you to taste something you may not have come up with yourself (within the Italian kitchen realm), such as a lemon salad... which isn't as sour as it sounds. Or spaghetti with tomato, ginger & ricotta. (This dish is definitely our alll time favourite, & the recipe has been passed on to many of our friends, in our view it combines the Italian kitchen with a distinct Asian ginger influence. By the way: we usuallly replace the ricotta with parmesan, & the ginger & tomato sauce can easily be frozen & reheated.)
Complaints in previous reviews have been that ingredients are sometimes hard to come by. I don't agree. First, you have to wait until the right season, that is the whole point of the book! In addition, what Gray & Rogers do is give us their choice of the best ingredients (such as maldon salt, or puy lentils) & using those ingredients would give the beste taste experience. However, with more regular ingredients (sea salt or lentils etc. ) you will come a very long way too.
I hope you'll enjoy this book as much as we do!
A Bit of a Disappointment - By: A. Weston, 12 May 2003 
I've not found this book as useful as I had hoped - a lot of the recipes seem to be rather unbalanced - flavourings too crude & heavy handed. One in particularly, a spaghettis sauce that is an interesting twist on an ordinary tomato sauce as it has ginger in it. If you use their proportions the ginger virtuallly blows your head off - it reallly needed drastic toning down to work. I've tried some other recipes in the book with similar results. It almost feels like they have only 'tasted' the dishes rather than having actuallly sat down to eat a whole plate. A finger-tip taste is fine, but the whole effect can be overpowering. I think this is a trap a lot of chefs make - cooking for effect rather than satisfaction.
Tastey - By: , 17 Nov 2002 
I have had this book for some time, & have to admit I have not cooked a single thing it covers. I think it is mainly due to the fact that almost every recipe callls for at least one ingredient that I am having great difficulty to get my hands on, unless I plan days ahead, & unfortunately I am not that type of person. That does not mean the book is not inspiring & appetising. In fact, the one thing it does for me the most is making me want to visit the restaurant!
The book focuses on vegetables & fruit, & each recipe is sectioned according to season of the year, the motivation being that fruit & veg is best when harvested in their own season. The idea is to promote a concern for how food is grown, with focus on organicallly grown produce, & with that, I would imagine, promote the concern about transport & year-around harvesting issues.
All recipies are Italian, covering soups, pasta, antipasti, salads, deserts, sauces, pizzas, drinks, & more. How about a chickpea pancake with rosemary or a bruschetta with puffballl & field mushrooms with tomato & thyme for starter, Penne with asparagus carbonara or a focaccia stuffed with gorgonzola & marjoram? Melon marinated in valpolicella with vanilla or red wine sorbet with crushed strawberries? Or, mmm, Chocolate ginger cake?
The book has over 200 recipies, & if you have access to a good farmer's market where you can get things like a variety of cabbages & mushrooms, fresh herbs, artichokes, figs, & pumpkins, this book will come in handy. The pictures promise greatness without being overly fancy.
I think I will go make some rosemary bruschetta, or perhaps figs, buffalo mozzarella & basil...
Another invaluable classic from Rogers and Gray - By: , 08 Aug 2001 If you, like me, adore Italian food & have, again like me, had access to & loved Rose Gray & Ruth Rogers previous books don't think that there is nothing further that they can add to their third Italian cookery 'bible'.
In 'River Cafe Green' (aptly named & you'll soon understand why), Rogers & Gray divide the book into 12 sections, one for each year. In each month there are sub-sections featuring whatever fruit & vegetables are best around that time & how you can use them to their full potential. Never have I found such pleasure in cooking as I have this year, not just because of the standard of food the duo enable you to produce, but also because of the enjoyment I have had in using home grown, seasonal ingredients.
Basics such as stocks, sauces, rich pasta, & crispy pizza dough are given as in the last two books but many of the dishes have very novel ideas & flavourings. Try the spaghetti with tomato & ginger & you'll see what I mean. The risotto recipes (particularly if you use homemade stock) will enable you to produce a rice dish worthy & often better than a lot of what you will get in a restaurant. The puddings are, as usual, wickedly wonderful. The recipe for cherry foccacia (an unusual variation for a summer pudding dish) is garaunteed to WOW your friends over a picnic lunch.
Having said this, some of the ingredients are slightly obscure & hard to access (unless you live in Italy or very near a good Italian delicatessen!!) but hunt around as if you can get hold of such treasures as aged balsamic vinegar, it is worth it, if expensive.
Verdict: a great follow up to the other books, & speaking for myself I hope they come up with a red, pink, purple, & orange book as well!
Excellant.... - By: , 28 May 2000 Another wonderfull book, by some very talented people. With great ideas & recipes which are delicious, it is definately one for the shelf.
