Gifts of good taste

REVIEWS BY SYBIL PRATT

So many great gourmet gifts, so little space to share them with you—sample these small bites and pick a perfect present.

Jamie Oliver, "naked" no more and now a big-time celebrity chef, loves Italy, Italians and Italian food. And Jamie's Italy, his sixth cookbook, is his ode to Italia, with more than 120 recipes, presented with his signature enthusiasm, chatty style and idiosyncratic instructions (a "glug" of olive oil, a "swig" of vinegar, "get the heat going full whack") and spiced with his verbal snapshots of the places he went and the people he met. The recipes are truly intriguing—Jamie's come up with terrific takes on classics like panzanella, minestrone and chicken cacciatora, but it's the spaghetti with shrimp and arugula, fresh tuna meatballs, Tuscan beef stew with lots of garlic and black pepper, and simple Baked Mushrooms in a Bag that make this a true Jamie triumph.


Southern comfort food

Culinary life for Matt and Ted Lee started with a homesick hankering for the boiled peanuts of their Charleston boyhood. That ultimately led to the Lee Bros. Boiled Peanut Catalog (a gourmet grab-bag for desperate, expatriate Southerners), trips throughout the Southeast foraging for artisanal food, and writing about the food, the people and recipes they encountered. The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook is the charmingly written outcome of all that, with more than 200 recipes celebrating Southern cuisine. These good brothers manage to serve both newcomers to and epicures of regional Southern cooking. You'll find the standards and the creatively unusual, along with recipe riffs on grits, collards, soul-warming stews, pickles, preserves, pies and more.


Wine, food & friends

Now there's a trio that's hard to beat. But then those niggling, nagging quandaries pop into your head—should I serve red or white, dry or slightly sweet, would a sparkling sip be appropriate or over the top? Agonize no more, you've got Karen MacNeil, the award-winning author of The Wine Bible, as your personal sommelier, a savvy, supportive grape guru who can get you through the wine-food conundrum with amazing ease. In Wine, Food & Friends, her wine wisdom is paired with more than 100 recipes from Cooking Light, organized into 28 seasonal menus. You should start off with "Pairing Principles," 14 simple ideas that make choosing the right wine a cinch. Now that you've parsed the pour, try a few of the dishes—the all-out elegant Holiday Dinner that begins with dry Champagne, moves to a warming beef stew washed down with an Australian Shiraz, and ends with chocolate cheesecake served with vintage Port.


Hats off

Is there fun after 50? Yes indeed, if you're among the jaunty women who lunch together wearing purple outfits topped off with red hats. The Red Hat Society calls itself a "dis-organiziation" of women who have done for others for all too many years and now, at a certain age, deserve a break—and a little visibility (check out those hats!). The members, numbering more than a million, live in every state and in 30 countries. Luckily, they've decided to share their specialties, "their absolute best of best recipes," with us. The Red Hat Society Cookbook, includes 1,000-plus recipes selected by highly accomplished Red Hat cooks who served as tried-and-true testers and tasters. It's like having a big old recipe exchange with hundreds of new friends. Desserts (more than 160 pages of them) come first, then "Everything Else" from BLT Dip and whiskey-glazed pork chops to carrot marmalade. Hatted or hatless, you're in for a good time.


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