A $4.00 closeout at the local chain; worth every penny of its original price! The photography and insights into the various regions are virtual tours by armchair of our states. Why this book isn't currently published is a mystery; a paperback version just doesn't seem appropriate to reflect the beauty of the photos. The recipes appear authentic and are well presented for easy use by the reader. My compliments to Idone; don't give up, keep writing... one of our favorite american cuisine books.

Like other reviewers, I was bowled over by the fantastic photos throughout this book. They are really beautiful and take me back to the year I spent in Brazil. My problem with the book is simple: There is no way anyone actually cooked by the majority of these recipies!! Ingredient amounts don't make sense, bowl and dish sizes don't make sense, cooking times don't make sense. Let me give one of the more egregious examples: In the recipie for Bolo de Aipim, the author proposes putting 2 pounds manioc root, 2 cups sugar, 4 eggs, 2 cups milk, and 2 cups coconut milk into a 9"x13" pan. These ingredients wouldn't fit into a pan twice that size! In addition, there is way, way too much liquid. This cake would take over an hour to firm up, not the 30 minutes he recommends. This is just one of dozens of examples.
I am tempted to recommend this book as a coffee table fixture, but I can not even do that. It is irresponsible of this author to write a book with grossly untested recipies. It is a waste of my money on ingredients and my time in the kitchen.
I do not recommend this book to anyone. There are many better choices for Brazilian cooking.

I have lived in Brasil for 2 years and I cook everyday. I recieved this book as a gift before I came here. Certainly the photos are nice, and maybe nice reading for some, but it is not a cookbook. THe ingredients are easily obtainable for me, obviously, but the recipes are overly cumbersome, and seem inacurate to me. I've tried a number of them and it seems like whoever the author got the recipes from didn't give him all the secrets. The idea is right, but following these recipes I seem to get a modified version of the real thing. Some of the fruit is inacurately identified. Sao Paulo has thousands of resturants, some are very good, some have big reputations for over priced dishes and unfortunately the author seems to concentrate on these resturants. Food is plentiful in Brasil, the land is rich, and the inventive Brasilians produce a vast variety of wonders to choose from. It is sad that the author missed the opportunity to include the everyday variety and great dishes of the common folk of Brasil.

I am from Brasil and disagree with the statement that this is not an accurate book. Yes, some recipes have been modified, but they have been modified so that they can be made with ingredients found in the US. I think it's a very colorful and well planned book. I like how it looks at the different foods from the different regions. I myself am from the state of Parana where most of the coffee is grown and a lot of the cattle. I highly recommend this book.