I put this cookbook on my Amazon wish list a looong time ago, so I had completely forgotten about it. When I opened it up on Christmas morning, I started praising the giver for making such an appropriate selection when she cut me short by pointing out that I had picked it out for myself. Who said, "Know thyself?" Wasn't it in one of Shakespeare's satirical monologues?

Anyway, it was an excellent selection, and I've made two things from it in the last week that I would definitely make again. One was pasta with ricotta and peas, and the other was chicken thighs braised in tomatoes. When I think about it, I modified both recipes, but the original recipes did have some unusual techniques that gave me good results.

You start the pasta the usual way, boiling a huge amount of water and cooking the pasta; I used orecchiette. (Although who decided that a pound of pasta feeds 4 people? Maybe over the course of a week.) While that's working, you mix 1 cup ricotta with 1/4 cup grated Parmesan, 2 tablespoons cut-up butter, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a bowl large enough to hold the finished pasta.

Then you saute some onions and garlic. We were feeding vegetarians, so I left out the pancetta or whatever it was that you're supposed to render first, and just used olive oil. 1 medium onion, diced, then a couple of minced garlic cloves go in after the onion is translucent. Cook that a minute or two, then pour the onion mixture in with the cheese.

When the pasta's basically done, maybe a little too al dente, add a couple cups of frozen peas to the boiling water. Heat until the pasta's done, then scoop out a cup of the water and whisk half of it into the cheese with 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice. Drain pasta, then mix with the cheese, adding more pasta water if needed.