Part cookbook, part travelogue, Adventures of an Italian Food Lover offers readers a matchless insider's tour of the best in Italian food and cooking. Faith Heller Willinger takes readers to bustling country markets and busy city shops, to wineries in rural villages, kitchens in restaurants and private homes where her friends share their recipes.
Watercolor illustrations of personalities and landscapes are by Suzanne Heller, Faith's sister.

For those who immediately associate Italian cooking with meatballs and red sauce, Faith Willinger has a treat. She has composed a cookbook of everyday, family Italian recipes that rely on vegetables and tradition. Each chapter features a specific vegetable, offering recipes and entertaining explanations on the traditional purpose of specific dishes. Try Carmignano fennel seed-spiced dried figs or Torquato's Rice and Cabbage Soup--her concoctions are creative yet simple to make.

Grab this book and your forchetta (fork) and head to Italy for a tantalizing tour of tastes. Faith Heller Willinger is an American living in Italy who has devoted her taste buds to sampling and reporting on the best Italian kitchens have to offer. If you aren't sated yet, Eating in Italy also provides gelato flavors, a key to Italian opening and closing hours, types of pasta, wine terminology, and a food glossary.

The Chefs of Cucina Amore, companion to the television show of the same name, stands on its own as an entertaining Italian cookbook. Most of its 100-plus dishes suit the modern palate while also being true to their regional Italian roots.