The Daily Sauce :: A Daily Sip of Hip

July 26th, 2007 edition of The Daily Sauce: Food and Wine. Visit Our Food and Wine Archive.

Rosalie Serving Italian

She's maybe 5-foot-3 with wavy, silver hair piled high on her head, and she has enough energy to power a small village. She's Italian by heritage and grew up in the St. Louis area but married a non-Italian. And she cooked. She cooked for her family and friends, for her church, for her husband's fellow ministers passing through town.

Pastas, meats, cookies, breads – everything Rosalie Rita Fiorino Harpole learned from her Sicilian mother and Roman father is now compiled into a slick, colorful hardback cookbook, Rosalie Serving Italian. In addition to the 148 recipes (a whole chapter dedicated to breakfast, including frittatas and Nutella pancakes!), Fiorino Harpole gives us the family story behind each dish as well as tips to ensure perfect execution (watch for a full review in an upcoming issue of Sauce Magazine). The family photographs sprinkled throughout provide a portrait of a growing Italian-American family, and the professional-looking food photos taken by Rosalie's son-in-law belie the fact that the book was self-published. In fact, the book will look comfortable standing next to your copy of Giada De Laurentis' Everyday Italian.

We picked up a copy at DiGregorio's Italian grocery on The Hill one Saturday when the petite dynamo was signing books and forcing samples of her delicious Italian cream cake into our hands. True to her Italian heritage, no one left hungry!

Sauce pick: Rosalie Serving Italian: Step by Step Teaching Hints and Family Insights by Rosalie Fiorino Harpole
Price: $24.95
Where to get it: Visit her Web site for retailers, but some local outlets include: DiGregorio's, 5200 Daggett Ave., St. Louis, 314.776.1062; Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid Ave., St. Louis, 314.367.6731; Main Street Books, 307 Main St., St. Charles, 636.949.0105, Urzi's Italian Market, 5430 Southwest Ave., St. Louis, 314.645.3914
Info: Rosalie will sign books Sat., July 28 at DiGregorio's; Tue., Aug. 15 at Left Bank Books. Other book sighing dates are on her Web site: www.rosalieservingitalian.com

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