Verdure: Simple Recipes in the Italian Style

Celebrating the simple cooking of Northern Italy, Verdure presents 100 healthful recipes for tempting dishes that make the best of fresh seasonal produce.

In Verdure, her long-awaited follow-up to Riso, Gioietta Vitale gives just-picked spinach, perfect baby artichokes, crisp green beans, and other delicacies of the garden the thoughtful treatment they deserve. These recipes, every bit as appealing as they are healthful, are delicious reminders of the tenets of Italian cooking: use fresh ingredients, respect those ingredients, and never add more to a dish than it needs.

This philosophy, which Gioietta has embraced since she first learned about food as a child in Northern Italy, results in such wonderfully simple dishes as Asparagus Salad with Potato-Anchovy Dressing, Sautéed Radicchio in Olive Oil, and Spinach Frittata. Each chapter features information on how to choose, store, and cook a single vegetable, from artichokes to zucchini, as well as a listing of flavors that will complement the vegetable in your own repertoire of dishes.

Each dish is prepared in the low-saturated-fat Italian tradition — a cooking style that's increasingly recognized as not only the most healthful but also one that takes best advantage of vegetables' own natural flavors.

The perfect cookbook for everyone whose culinary ambitions are awakened by overflowing produce stands and bountiful gardens,Verdure will appeal to anyone who understands that the best dishes are often the simplest ones.

Gioietta Vitale, a native of Milan, is the author of Riso (1996). A recent chairwoman of The American Italian Cancer Foundation, she continues to be active in fund-raising for cancer research. She is married to Alberto Vitale, former CEO of Random House, Inc., and lives in New York City.

Robin Vitetta-Miller has a master's degree in food and nutrition and is a contributing editor for Cooking Light and Health magazines. She writes columns for Shape, Natural Health, Men's Fitness, and Jump, has written articles on food and health for Family Circle, Mademoiselle, Woman's Day, and First for Women, and is a spokesperson for several food companies. She is the author of The Newlywed Cookbook (Sourcebook, 1999) and lives in Princeton, New Jersey.