Dynamic Duo Get Back to Italian

Cucina Fresca by Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman (Harper & Row: $19.95 cloth, $10.95 paperback).

Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman first met at Mangia restaurant where they were cooks. Both shared a passion for Italian cooking, talking and dreaming about it, working at it.

La Place moved on to food writing and Kleiman studied film and Italian literature. Then, Kleiman chucked it all and opened her own Italian restaurant, Angeli on Melrose Avenue, which became an instant success.

Now the duo is back collaborating on a cookbook on Italian food, “Cucina Fresca.” It’s a book, actually, about food served at room temperature, which, in Italian cuisine, translates to almost everything and anything, from appetizers to desserts.

“Our original idea was to do antipasti, but we expanded on the idea to include other categories when we realized how unlimited the group of room-temperature foods really is,” La Place said.

More to the Point

I’m not sure if the original idea might have been more to the point. The book seems unsure of its concept, teeter-tottering between two ideas-- cucina fresca (Italy’s fresh food kitchen) and room-temperature foods, which certainly are related, but tend to give the book a wavering edge.

I could be wrong, but I sense that there might have been some frantic brainstorming in marketing offices to justify yet another book on Italian cooking by Americans. If there was, it needn’t have been a concern. Italian cooking, natural and simple as it may be, needs interpretation if Americans are to cook it.

Julia Child paved the way for interpretive French cooking for the American audience. No one has yet performed the same service for Italian cooking. (Revered as they may be, the books by Giuliano Bugialli and Marcella Hazan, two top-selling Italian cookbook authors in the United States, have never quite made it, in my estimation.)

Who is better qualified than two American chefs who have worked in innovative Italian kitchens to interpret Italian cooking for today’s sophisticated amateur cooks? That service is, to me, the book’s chief contribution and ultimate value.

A Charming Cookbook

So if you ignore the so-called “hook” (fresca, room-temperature, cold, hot, lukewarm, who cares?) and see the book as a collection of straightforward Italian recipes that have been translated to the American kitchen and American-style dining, then you have a competent, highly innovative and charming cookbook to inspire you.

The recipes are right on the money for today’s upscale market. They are up-to-date, upbeat, modern and, best of all, easy.

The soup chapter (bean and minestrone soups among them) includes some unusual, unexpected soups, such as a roasted red pepper soup, lemon soup, garlic soup and salad soup. How do the authors explain a cold minestrone? “Since minestrone has the reputation of being a hot and hearty winter soup, eating it at room temperature is a revelation. The fresh, uncooked flavor of the basil and garlic brings the wealth of vegetable tastes into relief.”

Salads include the nouvelle cuisine triumvirate: radicchio, mache and arugula, and there are some composed salads, which also are part of the modern Italian food scene.

From the Usual to the Unusual

There is a nice section on cheese and egg dishes, from the usual (goat cheese marinated in oil and red pepper flakes) to the unusual (pasta frittata, as a way of using leftover pasta).

Savory tarts are an important part of Italian antipasti cuisine, and you’ll have a terrific start with that chapter in “Cucina Fresca.” There are recipes for most of the typical pastry doughs and pizza dough. You have not only torta rustica, which everyone who shops at delis these days knows about, but also the ancient timballo , the dome-shaped savory pies, which are often pictured in medieval and Renaissance paintings.

Few cuisines in the world can boast the inspired vegetable cookery that is common in Italian cooking. So if you are looking for ideas for cooking ordinary and unusual vegetables, you’ll have plenty to work with when you get to the vegetable chapter. Asparagus with tomatoes and pine nuts, beans with sage, kale and black olives, among others.

The meat, fish and poultry chapters are also filled with ideas. There is an oyster salad, grilled butterflied leg of lamb marinated with rosemary oil and garlic, chicken poached in orange juice and sage, shrimp in a spicy lime marade and shrimp marinated with wild fennel. There is fish in lemon and cream and a version of gravad lax made with fennel and mint.

The dessert section will help any cook with quick, easy, no-cook, glamorous ideas: cantaloupe with anisette, figs poached in red wine, black grapes in Port, ricotta and crystallized honey.

Here’s a pasta frittata to take to a picnic.

CUCINA FRESCA PASTA FRITTATA

6 to 8 eggs

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Coarse salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

2 cups cooked pasta with marinara or other red sauce

Lightly beat eggs with Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper to taste in bowl. Heat oil in small non-stick, oven-proof skillet. Saute garlic briefly. Add pasta and heat through.

Beat eggs briefly again and pour over pasta in skillet. Reduce heat. Cook slowly, stirring frequently, until eggs have formed small curds and frittata is firm except for top.

To cook top, place pan under hot broiler or in 400-degree oven until lightly browned. Cool in pan 1 to 2 minutes. Place plate over top of pan and invert frittata onto it. Serve at room temperature. Cut into wedges to serve. Makes 4 servings.