Before the Sopranos, there were the Cascones. With the irreverence, gutsy spirit, and warmhearted hilarity that made "Pagan Babies" a classic, here is the Italian American experience served up by the author who has been crowned "The Patron Saint of Humor."

An American chef will have to serve up more than good eats if she wants to establish a successful farm-to-table cooking school in Tuscany, in this charming first installment in a new cozy mystery series set in Italy. When Nell Valenti is offered a chance to move to Tuscany to help transform an aging villa into a farm-to-table cooking school, she eagerly accepts. After all, both her job and her love life in America have been feeling stale. Plus, she'll get the chance to work under the acclaimed Italian Chef Claudio Orlandini. But Nell gets more than she bargained for when she arrives. With only a day to go until the launch dinner for the cooking school, the villa is in shambles, and Chef O is blissfully oblivious of the work that needs to be done before a group of local dignitaries arrive, along with a filmmaker sent to showcase and advertise the new school. The situation only worsens when Nell discovers that the filmmaker is an ex-boyfriend, and he’s found murdered later that night. Even worse, Chef O has disappeared, and accusations of murder could shut the school down for good. As tensions reach a boiling point at the villa, Nell must throw her chef's hat into the ring, and investigate the murder herself. Because if she fails to solve the case, her career, or even her life, could be next on the chopping block.

With the irreverence, gutsy spirit, and warmhearted hilarity that made Pagan Babies a classic, here is the Italian-American experience served up by the author who has been crowned the Patron Saint of Humor. Before the Sopranos, there were the Cascones....Life al Dente, the new memoir from the author of Pagan Babies, brings the same wit and wonder to the telling of Gina Cascone's Italian-American girlhood...well, boyhood actually. In an Italian family, few things are a greater handicap than being born female, but Gina's Dad generously decided to overlook this shortcoming and raise Gina as a boy -- the son he always wanted. As lawyer to numerous "alleged" mobsters, Dad had some colorful clients who would regularly gather around the basement pool table to talk business, drink, and be hustled by junior high Gina. There was no way Gina was going to turn into one of the big hair girls of Italian-American stereotype, but her journey would have all the bumps that come with that cherished immigrant ambition of moving from steerage to the suburbs in three generations. That sense of dislocation came early for Gina as her family moved from the kind of neighborhood where old men play bocce and the pet frogs are named Nunzio to one where Barbies and frozen food prevail. And though Gina's brains got her into the top high school, she quickly made the lonely discovery that she was the only one there whose name ended in a vowel. In our overly pasteurized and homogenized world, there's a real hunger to find and celebrate our connection to old world roots and traditions. Life al Dente abounds in hilarious stories, but also rewards readers with a genuine and poignant contemplation of cultural identity.

FIRST IN THE NEW CULINARY MYSTERY SERIES!--WINNER OF THE AGATHA AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL The town of Jewel Bay, Montana—known as a Food Lovers' Village—is obsessed with homegrown and homemade Montana fare. So when Erin Murphy takes over her family’s century-old general store, she turns it into a boutique market filled with local delicacies. But Erin’s freshly booming business might go rotten when a former employee turns up dead… Murphy’s Mercantile, known as the Merc, has been a staple in Jewel Bay for over a hundred years. To celebrate their recent makeover as a gourmet food market, Erin has organized a town festival, Festa di Pasta, featuring the culinary goods of Jewel Bay’s finest—including her mother Fresca’s delicious Italian specialties. But Erin’s sweet success is soured when the shop’s former manager, Claudette, is found dead behind the Merc on the Festa’s opening night. With rival chef James Angelo stirring up rumors that Fresca’s sauce recipes were stolen from Claudette, Erin’s mother is under close scrutiny. Now Erin will have to hunt down some new suspects, or both her family and her store might wind up in hot water… INCLUDES FRESH, DELICIOUS RECIPES!

Imagine the River Tiber as an alimentary tract. Picture a hungry saint. Think of erotic Renaissance fruit paintings, transubstantiation and a tiramisu café where magic issurelyon the menu... This highly original interpretation of Rome's history, culture, art and religion takes the form of a book about food that's not really about food at all. During his first two years in Rome, David Winner found himself in turn amazed and overwhelmed by its physical, historical and cultural vastness. Then a chance encounter with an extraordinary pudding provided him with the means to start digesting his surroundings. That evening he was struck by the significance of the Roman attitude to food: a unique and unequivocal relationship between sustenance and existence, where every last aspect of life is (and always has been) 'pickled in alimentation'. In Al DenteWinner takes us on a stroll through the city as he muses idiosyncratically on all things comestible and much else besides. Here we learn about Rome as metropolis and necropolis, about tasty vineyard snails and the food-and-sex scandal that sent Saint Jerome packing. The cinematic greats such as Argento, Fellini and Ferreri are discussed alongside historical political satire where grocery orgies were art and the penis was the subject of hagiographies. There are the bloodthirsty antics of an eighteenth-century executioner who worked for the pope, stories of immolation, architecture and artichokes, and a telephone interview with a nun who makes Eucharistic wafers. There's also a nice 1891 recipe for stewed lamb's head. Winner is a master of wit and diversity with a seemingly insatiable appetite for peculiar detail and disturbances on the cultural landscape. In Eat, Don't Eat his ability to explore the world around him as a series of interconnections provides an intriguing new portrait of a remarkable city - a veritable trifle of Roman bedrock and apogee, cosmos and counterculture to be devoured with gusto. Buon appetito...

Pasta, polenta, gnocchi, risotto, soup--these are the heart and soul of Italian cooking. Simple, hearty, and filling, these dishes can satisfy any craving, any time. Do you like pasta? Biba gives you pasta--three chapters of pasta, eighty-seven recipes in all. Prefer your pasta stuffed? How about Eggplant-Goat Cheese Tortelli with Fresh Tomatoes and Black Olives or Spinach Cannelloni with Duck and Wild Mushroom Stuffing? Want to try a new spin on lasagne? Lasagne with Walnut Pesto and Ricotta might be just the thing. If you like to keep it simple, Biba can feed your hunger with inspired but quick-to-the-table recipes like Spaghetti with Hot Anchovy Sauce or Pasta with Spicy Broccoli. Polenta and gnocchi are the quintessential Italian comfort foods and Biba's hearty recipes serve up satisfaction and surprising variety--Potato Gnocchi with Osso Buco Sauce; Saffron Gnocchi with Mushrooms, Prosciutto, Asparagus, and Cream Sauce; Polenta with Fontina, Butter, and Sage; and Soft Polenta with Pancetta, Garlic, and Hot Pepper, to name only a few. Risotto and soup--what better choices can one have on a cold, wet evening? Whatever you're in the mood for--or have on hand--there's a risotto to fit the bill. Savor Risotto of the Fisherman; Risotto with Roasted Butternut Squash; Risotto with Three Cheeses; or Risotto with Sausage, Beans, and Red Wine. And soup lovers will delight in what Biba has to offer--from thick vegetable minestre like Tuscan Chick-pea and Pasta Soup and Artichoke, Leek, and Rice Soup to lighter fare like Angel Hair in Broth. Italy at Dente keeps the flavors direct and the recipes simple. If you like Italian, this is a cookbook for the kitchen counter. Italy al Dente is Italian food that is "just right." There singular recipes are perfectly on target -- precisely the food we want to eat every day, day after day: the simply perfect pasta, flavor-filled gnocchi, hearty soups, steaming risottos, and comforting polenta -- the tastes we crave when we think Italian. Legions of Biba admirers -- who have brought hundreds of thousands of copies of her cookbooks -- know that no one hits this high note quite as well as she does. Recipe after recipe, each is a peak moment, with dishes like Simmer Spaghetti with Uncooked Tomato Sauce Squash-Eggplant Tortellini with Butter and Sage, Ricotta Gnocchi with Walnuts and Gorgonzola, Barley and Porcini Mushroom Soup, Soft Polenta with Bolognese Meat Sauce, and Risotto with Roasted Butternut Squash. This is simple cooking at its best.

From the bestselling author of The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag series, Jennifer L. Hart, comes a new mystery series of mouthwatering proportions... Pretty please with spaghetti on top? Andy Buckland has always dreamed of being a chef. But after a live studio audience is stricken with food poisoning during her debut cooking show, she finds herself blacklisted in the culinary community. The only job open to her is working in her family's southern pasta shop, and, to make matters worse, her first assignment is serving baked ziti to her former lover and his spoiled bride-to-be at their engagement party! But a broken heart and a bruised ego are the least of Andy's troubles when she discovers a dead body at the party with the words "welcome home" written in flour next to it. Is it a warning? A threat? Or a frame-up job? Andy is determined to find out. With the help of her over-the-top Italian family, Andy will prove that she has what it takes to not only cook the best dish in town but also catch a killer, too! **Recipes included** Southern Pasta Shop Mysteries: Murder Al Dente – book #1 Murder A La Flambé – book #2 Murder Al Fresco – book #3 Christmas Al Dente – holiday short story What critics are saying about Jennifer L. Hart's books: "A must read for all people who love a good mystery and a jolly good laugh...laugh out loud funny." ~ Black Orchid, Cocktail Reviews "Laugh out loud funny, realistic characters, snappy true to life dialog, and a sufficiently difficult mystery; all the required elements for an excellent read." ~ Manic Readers "I would not hesitate to pick up another of Ms. Hart's works as she definitely made me with one book a lifelong fan." ~ Joyfully Reviewed

As a child, Gina Cascone would hide under her bed, in the closet, and run away from her parents, hoping somehow to escape her worst fear. But she couldn't hide from the awful truth... She had to go to Catholic school. Do nuns have legs? Is Original Sin the "starter sin" for novices? Can the rosary be said in under fifteen minutes? These are some of the questions that vex young Gina Cascone as she makes her way, grade by grade -- and prayer by prayer -- through the rigors of a Catholic education. All the answers can be found in this hilarious classic of childhood foibles: the traumatic first day of school, the dorky plaid uniform complete with matching beanie, glow-in-the-dark rosary beads, first confession trauma, proper dashboard decor ("Cadillacs got Jesus; Oldsmobiles got Mary"), and the race to save the most "pagan babies," who weren't lucky enough to be born Catholic and American.

"An intuitive detective, a kidnapped child, and an assassin with a heart of gold ..."In Murder Al Dente, PI Nicoli "Nikki" Hunter once again gets herself in hot water when she's hired by a multimillionaire boat owner, (and sex toy manufacturer,) to find out who's trying to kill him. Nikki has barely begun her investigation when he's found dead aboard his mega yacht. The cause of death appears to be suicide, but Nikki knows better and believes it's up to her to bring his killer to justice. As she's delving into her deceased client's background, a woman calls asking for help. Her four-year-old daughter has been abducted and the police have no leads. Realizing that time may be running out for the little girl, Nikki agrees to take her case as well and embarks on what turns out to be a truly labyrinthine journey to save a child's life. Murder Al Dente is the 9th novel in award winning author, Nancy Skopin's, Nikki Hunter mystery series.

Gift of Seeds is a collection of stories as diverse as we are. Through the author's vivid descriptions, we feel what it's like to grow up in Levittown, Long Island, America's first planned suburb. With him, we survive swimming lessons and bullies, polio shots and pranks. We fall in and out of love, get back up, and find the real thing. Along the way, we encounter spiders and elephants, get acquainted with birth and death and grief, experience joy and pain, and learn about being human. The essays are poignant, funny, insightful, real. Written in a voice as old as yesterday and as fresh as tomorrow, Gift of Seeds could be everyone's memoir.