PNW Italian cookbooks
Cookbooks from Italian clubs in the Pacific Northwest make great Christmas gifts
The Italian American Club of Boise, Idaho has a fantastic cookbook, MANGIAMO! They’re selling fast, so grab a copy soon—over 200 member-submitted recipes.
Next, we have The Soul of Italy, a cookbook comprised of recipes submitted by members of The Grand Lodge of the Northwest. To place your order, contact your lodge president or call Jackie Haberstock habpal@hotmail.com.
The Rainier Valley Historical Society in Seattle has assembled a cookbook that is a culinary narrative of heritage recipes and oral histories, including Italian. Order your copy on the Society’s website.
This book, CUCINARIA, published in Italy, has a Seattle connection because the author, Maria Lucia Luongo, is a Seattle-Perugia Sister City Association member. She has visited the area on several occasions to teach cooking. Here’s a lovely L’Italo Americano newspaper article by Rita Cipalla about Maria Lucia Luongo and what inspired the cookbook.
Lastly, if you’re still looking for book ideas for holiday gifts, try one of mine, including my latest, MURDER & MATRIMONY IN THE CASTELLO, which takes place at Christmas in a northern Italian castle where a wedding goes awry.
To continue the food theme, try my 1920s novella, SLAIN OVER SPUMONI.
Or, if nonfiction is more your recipient’s preference, ITALIANS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, is also available and tells the tales of early Italian immigrants in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington from 1880 to 1950.
If a shorter story is more practical, SHADOWS OF THE ADRIATIC, my contribution to a historical anthology might be a good fit.
