Sweet Sicily: The Story of an Island and Her Pastries (ISBN 0060393238)

Amazon.com Review:
In Sicily they eat ice cream for breakfast. That fact alone was enough to convince Victoria Granof that she had to go there. Sweet Sicily: The Story of an Island and Her Pastries is the result of a number of Granof's visits to Sicily, during which she confesses she ate more sweets than she ever thought possible. With plenty of humor and great respect, Granof shares what she learned from her experiences in Sicily and the friends she made there. Few of these sweets are fancy, and all are very traditional. Light and crispy Sweet Ricotta Turnovers from the Bar di Noto in Piana degli Albanesi and Chewy Pistachio Cookies shared by Giuseppe Chemi of Pasticceria Etna in Taormina are Sicily personified. All 106 of the recipes, such as the elegant little Engagement Cookies filled with almonds and cinnamon and honey-drenched Rice Fritters, call for the same ingredients the Sicilians have used for centuries. Learn to make homemade ricotta cheese and you won't believe how good your cannoli can be. --Leora Y. Bloom

Beautiful book:
This is a fantastic book! The recipes are great and the photography is really beautiful. The history of the island is so fascinating and is covered well in this book. It is a nice set up to the recipes... its wonderful to get some background on why Sicilian pastries are the way they are. I also enjoyed learning which pastries are associated with religious observences. This book also brought back great memories. The Ricotta Turnovers in the book are very similar to the "Cassateddi" that my Sicilian grandmother loves. The author does an excellent job of providing mail order resources for some hard to get ingredients and provides infomation on how to make a reasonable approximation of other components yourself. (like Fresh Ricotta) I would also like to clear up a misconception. Two previous reviewers indicated that there was a typo on the Chewy Pistachio cookie recipe just because flour was not listed. It is NOT an ingredient in the cookie. If you read further and pay attention to the instructions, flour is not called for. Not every cookie has flour and not every cookie is made like Americans make things. As for the person who said that the picture showed flour... rest assured, the cookie is dusted with powdered sugar which is in the recipe (and much tastier than dusting it with flour). No typo there, just a different (and delicious)type of cookie.

Not so Sweet:
The history in this book is wonderful. However, the recipes are very inconsistent. Missing ingredients, etc. make it impossible to use this cookbook. I tried twice to make the Little Tea Cookies (pg.70) with no success. The dough would never come together (obviously some ingredient is missing).

Great stories and nice pictures:
Here I am. It's Dec 23. I'm trying to make some pastries for Christmas eve dinner. I just found out the hard way that the recipe for "Pasta Frolla", is garbage. 'Garbage' is not the word I would normally choose given my level of anger and frustration, but I'd like the review to stand so others know not to follow in my footsteps. If Hurricaneman can make it following her recipe, I bow to his superior skillz. Her recipe calls for 5 cups flour to 1 cup butter. All the recipes I find in a brief online search have a ratio much closer to 3:1. I didn't even finish adding all the flour before my "soft dough" was a bowl of fine powder. Being full blooded Sicilian myself, I have a feeling that these bakers who she "sweet talked" gave her bogus recipes just to get this woman out of her hair. I know that's what I'd do and I know plenty of Sicilians who would resort to similar tactics to protect their trade secrets. :-)

Excellent Book and A Must-Have:
I can tell you from experience that this cookbook is much more than just a cookbook. It's a manual for creating authentic Sicilian pastries and desserts. I learned many guarded secrets working for an Italian Bakery in my youth, and can say that this book should have never been published. Now all the secrets are out. Some reviewers have complained of typos in the book. If there are any typos, I believe contacting the publisher and author could easily clear the air and correct any mistakes. The author went through a lot of trouble flattering her interviewers and humbling herself before others to obtain these recipes, I'm sure she would want purchasers of her book to be successful creating these masterpieces. She even went so far as to list suppliers for hard to find items. Personally, I've noticed NO TYPOS! Buy this book, you'll never put it down.

A beautiful book:
This is a wonderful book to enjoy and to give as a gift. This pictures are lovely. The history included makes it all that much more interesting.