4 stars.
Confession: I love to just read cookbooks almost as much as creating the recipes in them, and this one was especially delightful because it’s more than just an Italian cookbook. It’s also part memoir,and part love-story to food and family. Some of the ingredients or recipes may appear slightly challenging for a novice cook, but Ruggerio is a good teacher and his recipes are clearly written so you can be confident that you can recreate his recipes. My only real complaint is that very few of the recipes have any pictures accompanying them, and as a visual person, I love to get a little idea of what my dish should look like.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for the opportunity to read and review A Tomato Grows in Brooklyn.

Part biography. Part cookbook. Whole love letter to food and culture. These stories are so comforting and familiar it was like reading my own memories. Even if you aren’t from an Italian family (or maybe especially if you aren’t) you will love this cookbook. After mastering these recipes you will be cooking like a true Italian.

David Ruggerio was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York by Italian parents. The author got his start in one of the best kitchens at the time, learning skills that have helped him to this day. Brooklyn was settled by many Southern Italians and the author's recipes reflect this upbringing.

The introduction contains an interesting history lesson regarding the population of the area in which he was raised. The recipe sections include personal notes about Ruggerio's family and information that he deems necessary for readers to get the full scope of his point of view. I like the personal touches, especially in how they relate to the recipe themselves. The recipes are not collated in a typical fashion, separated instead of chapter devoted to Family History, Macaroni, The Garden, The Stoop, How to Speak Chicken, The Pork Store, The Bay, and so on. The author has a key at the beginning for the recipes types (for example, an "a" next to the recipe means this is an appetizer).

Some of my favorite recipes are listed below:
Arangini di Carne (Rice Balls with Meat and Peas)
Minestra Maritata (Wedding Soup)
Pasta e Patate (Pasta and Potatoes)
Vellutata di Riso e Zucchine (Creamy Zucchini and Rice Soup with a Runny Egg)
Pizza a Ogge a Otto (Fried Stuffed Pizza)
Zuppa di Pollo della Nonna (Grandma's Chicken Soup)
Gnocchi alla Sorrentina (Potato Gnocchi with Tomato and Fresh Mozzarella)
Parrozzo Natale (Chocolate Ganache Covered Almond Cake)
Pizza Dough
Basic Marinara
Sicilian Breadcrumbs

The format of the recipes makes it hard to find the gems that are hidden within these pages. There are few photographs accompanying the dishes, though there are many personal photos. Overall, A Tomato Grows in Brooklyn is more a family tome than a cookbook, but there are some good recipes that many readers will like.

Disclaimer: I was given an Advanced Reader's Copy of A Tomato Grows in Brooklyn, by NetGalley and the publisher, Black Rose Writing. The decision to read and review this cookbook was entirely my own.

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.

Very nice cookbook! There are more recipes that what I expected. I though it would be mostly about pasta but there are recipes for meat, fish and seafood, desserts and Christmas recipes. At the end you will find recipes for homemade ricotta, jams and sauces. Very good! I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

I received a copy of this cookbook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a great cookbook. The recipes all look delicious and the few I tried were amazing!

As a young adult with Southern Italian heritage who lives in New York City, I do really appreciate this book.

The opening pages of this cookbook are clear with intention, noting the history of Italian immigrants making their own way, own food, and own American dream in the homes and hidden basements of New York City. While aware with general vagueness of the treatment Italians faced in New York (and elsewhere) as they emigrated to America, the author here provides extremely interesting documents and accounts of these moments, laying out for his reader a historical record of the societal disregard that's often forgotten today. As the book continues, David opens up more of his upbringing and personal history than the intro would suggest, where he speaks about his own Brooklyn upbringing with a peculiar sharpness -- not weaving these moments so much as foisting. As we move further into the book, he focuses more on his family, his neighbors, and himself, and it's a welcome shift. The section musing on gardens is a nice little addition. He even circles in to discuss the learned art of storytelling itself. Though I will say the section title refusing Happy Holidays as valid (the author prefers Merry Christmas) is in my opinion unnecessary. I get the sentiment, and get that the sentiment is simultaneously "Italians don't care what you think," but it's a little too caricature-y. As we all know, saying "happy holidays" when you don't know someone's religious affiliation is appropriate and considerate, without question, every time.

Mr. Ruggerio is not an author by trade, and while first reading I did notice more than a few moments where the grammar was grating -- e.g. subject-verb disagreement in sentences, use of hyphens as dashes inconsistently, and an instance of using the word "ions" where "eons" was meant -- though this would be for the book's editor to correct, not the author himself. That being said, as I read more of the author's writing, I felt myself forgiving the less-polished moments and accepting that they help characterize the author, and his book by extension, as a whole.

The author notes, and I appreciate this, that he will not be focusing on the tried-and-true Italian-American standards that one can find just about anywhere. I really enjoy how stories continue further into the cookbook. The almost-aimless memory of his local Undertaker is incredible. (In fact, pun necessary, to die for!) And the other memories follow suit. These stories, while years and years old from the author's boyhood, are excellently modern, describing situations far from the brief sitcom style most cookbooks aim their "funny" stories toward; instead, we are met here with a true New York sense of humor at, and acceptance of, absurdity. It's unusual to see this type of story in a cookbook, and as a New Yorker who gets it, the Undertaker piece made me laugh at the absurdity of its inclusion at all -- in a great way.

Recipe-wise, I loved the variation of chickpea recipes the author included -- which are not often what one thinks when they think "Italian!" A number of recipes such as fritters or wedding soup are eyeballed classics in my household, and that being said, I love having a tome of written recipes that will be easy to recommend to others. I don't make tiramisu enough to have the measurements memorized, and will return to this e-book from now on while I make it. Many of these recipes, he is correct, aren't Little-Italy-Restaurant recipes, but from giardiniera to stuffed peppers to Easter bread to pizzaiola to panzanella, these are the true Italian American recipes. Could have used a few more Italian Christmas cookie recipes, but I won't complain. :)

A Tomato Grows in Brooklyn is a cookbook interspersed with warm memoir recollections by David Ruggerio. Due out 12th Oct 2021 from Black Rose Writing, it's 252 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book is included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free.

This is an unvarnished memoir written in chapters through Chef Ruggerio's childhood and professional life. He talks plainly in a direct voice with the reader about his difficult childhood, trouble with the law, and eventual redemption and professional success as a culinary professional. He is unabashedly plain spoken, brash even, and his recollections and reminiscences are often bittersweet. He doesn't dwell on the tragedies (he was orphaned at 5 years old) or the systemic racism which Southern Italians experienced - they are just facts of life to be gotten around or compensated for. What does come through clearly is his love of and respect for food and family which are inextricably entwined. In fact, the recipes are gathered in each memoir chapter in a sort of stream-of-consciousness manner, and only coded with their uses: a (appetizer), b (breakfast/brunch), m (main course), c (side dish/contorni), and d (dessert). At least in the pre-release ARC I received for review, there was no comprehensive index, which will make the recipes a challenge to find without a systematic read-through of the book.

I was entranced by the brash style of the memoir and his unapologetic (and presumably) unvarnished reminiscences of growing up in the 70s in Brooklyn. The comforting home life with scents of olive oil, tomatoes simmering with basil, and handmade traditional sausages are there, related on the same page as violence on the doorstep with drug abuse, stabbings, and murder. The dichotomy is dizzying and somehow fascinating at the same time.

Recipes are written with names in both Italian and English, the aforementioned code (breakfast, appetizer, main dish, dessert), an introduction and recipe ingredients listed bullet-style in a sidebar. Ingredients are given with American standard measures (no metric equivalents given), followed by step by step preparation instructions. Roughly a third of the recipes are accompanied by photographs. The food is not overstyled and looks genuinely appetizing and real. Serving photos are appealing and appropriate. Most recipes are written for family sized portions (generally 4-8 servings, sometimes more).

There are a number of "fancier" dishes which aren't generally available outside of specialty cookbooks, as well as quite a number of specific holiday recipes (Saints days, Christmas, etc). My major problem with the book was the apparent lack of a table of contents or index. Both of these issues are possibly fixed in the release copy. The memoir itself is quite worthwhile and I compensated for the lack of index by bookmarking recipes I wanted to revisit as I read through the book. Not ideal, but workable.

Three and a half stars, rounded up for the unvarnished and enlightening memoir.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

A wonderful book full of delicious recipes and wonderful. Memories of Brooklyn.I grew up in Brooklyn so t get food the memories of Brooklyn brought me home.The stoops the neighborhoods the people ,I can smell the food wonderful place to grow up.I will be recommending and gifting this book to friends I grew up in Brooklyn with.Looking forward to cooking up a feast.#netgalley #blackrosebooks.