Title:	A Tomato Grows in Brooklyn
	Author:	David Ruggerio
	Published:	October 12, 2021, Black Rose Writing
	No. of Pages:	252
	Cover Price:	$45.95 Hardcover, $12.99 Kindle

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Most food memoirs contain mostly talk and few recipes. A Tomato Grows in Brooklyn, however, is a delightful memoir full of mouthwatering recipes. Celebrated chef, David Ruggerio, has outdone himself with this fascinating and beautiful book. The prose is well-written, and one can actually imagine a tough kid growing up in Brooklyn who made it good.

This is an excellent book to curl up in a corner to read, but readers will want to immediately get out of that corner and prepare a dish or two from this book. The recipes are very appealing, and include many unique recipes that will expand anyone’s Italian recipe repertoire. Ruggerio makes good use of pasta in many shapes that most of us don’t regularly use. There are appetizers, salads, soups, main dishes with beef, pork, chicken, lamb, and seafood, as well as desserts. This is definitely a cookbook that will be used often. The recipes are written in the traditional manner and are easy-to-follow. Most are fairly easy, and aren’t especially time-consuming, so busy cooks, whether beginning or advanced, can prepare these recipes with picture-perfect results. Although there isn’t a photograph of every recipe, there are dozens of beautiful photographs of many of the dishes. These are good enough to inspire most cooks to prepare several recipes from the book.

I love this cookbook. It is well-written, inspiring, entertaining, and will make anyone who eats very hungry. This cookbook is beautiful and is perfect for a gift or coffee-table book. It will make an excellent addition to any good cookbook collection and will be used often.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.