toledoblade.com --

There's a feast for your eyes and ears at Lynne Rossetto Kasper's Italian table.

Whether she's on the radio or you see her in person, the Italian food authority radiates warmth and hospitality. She will transmit that culinary effervescence and approachability to audiences at four cooking shows held as part of The Blade Great Taste Toledo Food & Cooking Expo presented by The Andersons on Oct. 17 and 18 at the Stranahan Theater and Great Hall at the Masonic Complex.

You will learn more about The Splendid Table for holiday dining, and the spirit of country food with The Italian Country Table than you ever dreamed possible.

COMING UP: GREAT TASTE EXPO

The Blade Great Taste Toledo Food & Cooking Expo presented by The Andersons will be held from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Oct. 17 and 18 at the Stranahan Theater and Great Hall at the Masonic Complex, 4645 Heatherdowns Blvd.

Two cooking shows will feature guest chef Lynne Rossetto Kasper daily. On Oct. 17 the shows at 1:30 p.m. and repeated at 7 p.m. will feature Rustic Italian cooking. The shows on Oct. 18 at 1:30 p.m. and repeated at 7 p.m. will feature Elegant Italian cooking.

Tickets for each cooking show are $5 per person in advance and are available by mailing the coupon in today's Blade with check or credit card number to Great Taste Toledo, Attn.: Ron Shnider, P.O. Box 856, Toledo, Ohio 43660. Or purchase tickets at The Andersons stores in Maumee, on Talmadge Road, and at the Woodville Mall.

In the Great Hall there will be more than 40 food booths offering food samples, coupons, food demonstrations, and displays. Admission to the Great Hall is free. Among those participating are Zingerman's, Root's Poultry, Stingers Grill at Heatherdowns Country Club, Almondina/YZ Enterprises, Espresso Four Seasons, Youngs Batter Mix, Toledo Restaurant Training Center, and Everlasting Companion Services for pets.

Information: 419-724-6366.

Ms. Kasper is the host of public radio's national food show, The Splendid Table, which is produced and distributed by American Public Media. It airs at noon Sundays on WUOM-FM 91.7 in Ann Arbor. The range of topics each week introduces listeners to new and practical cooking ideas.

From talking to a physicist about how the foam in a cappuccino cup is the same structure as the night sky to challenging a wine expert to match the right bottle to a snack of Twinkies, Ms. Kasper is a great story teller.

The Food & Cooking shows are:

•Oct. 17 Rustic Italian featuring an Italian Farmhouse Buffet, 1:30 and 7 p.m.;

•Oct. 18 Elegant Italian featuring a holiday dinner menu in Northern Italy, 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Plan on attending both programs.

"The first menu is the spirit of country food in Italy," Ms. Kasper said in a phone interview. "You can cook it ahead, with the exception of the pasta which will be tossed at the last minute. Once it's on the table it will hold up well."

She intends to make one of two pasta dishes and must choose between puttanesca sauce (from Naples), which is not cooked, and a spicy tomato sauce from the shepherds in Sicily.

"Sicilian Shepherd Sauce depends on a high quality ricotta," she said. "A good ricotta is almost like cream."

"The buffet is rustic food. It's the essence of home cooking. It's the kind of food people can't stop eating."

The second menu is the sit-down dinner, which she calls "the feast at the villa" although it has many aspects that require planning ahead. "I can't stand a recipe that says 'serve immediately' - unless it's a roast," Ms. Kasper said.

Both 90-minute demonstrations are four-course menus prepared on Wolfe appliances supplied by Jan Merrell Kitchens. But, "There are so many pieces you can break-out (of the menu) and have a really good supper on a Saturday night or a work night," she said.

The recipes will come from her award-winning book The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food (Morrow, $35) which is the only book to win both the James Beard and the Julia Child Best Cookbook of the Year Awards, and her The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchens (Scribner, $35). Both books will be available for sale at the Food & Cooking Expo. Ms. Kasper will sign copies following each cooking show.

Ms. Kasper has been featured on television shows such as The Jim Lehrer News Hour, Good Morning America, and Julia Child's Master Chefs, and in publications such the Wall Street Journal and People, Gourmet, and Cook's Illustrated magazines. She has been named one of the 12 Best Cooking Teachers in America by the James Beard Foundation.

The St. Paul, Minn., resident is hard at work on a third cookbook that will be based on material from the radio show.

"It will be about how food is playing today in America. It will feature weeknight cooking, food science, humor with sidebars and boxes. It's all from 10 years of The Splendid Table," she said.

She anticipates it will be published in spring 2008.

Earlier this month she was in Santa Fe for a "music and food trip" with American Public Media. One of the stops was the Santa Fe Farmers Market with cookbook author Deborah Madison, who is former market manager there.

"I'm obsessive about local and sustainable cuisine," Ms. Kasper said. "That's what my books are about - there's 500 years of culinary traditions in Splendid Table. I have a deep identification with 'I am what I eat.' It's plain old-fashioned personal identity."

She does see progress. "We are more engaged with food in our own backyard than we were 10 years ago," she said. "The small scale has become what more people seek out."

With this devotion to food, she records her radio show. It takes four days of work for four and a half people to craft each show. She also writes the weekly Web site newsletter called Weeknight Kitchen with Judy Graham, who will be on stage with her at the Toledo cooking shows. In addition, she writes the weekly column Ask the Splendid Table for Scripps Howard News Service which is run in 400 newspapers.

If you live in an area that doesn't get the radio show, you can listen online at www.splendidtable.org.

"I've been teaching since 1968," she said. "There's two elements. First to entertain. I'm having such a good time that people watching have a good time. I assume you know nothing about what I'm cooking. I want to share everything in all it's glory.

"Second, food tells a story. Every single dish has a culture, a history, the science around it, and it reflects the person who created it, and sometimes the myth attached. These recipes come from 17 years of research in Italy."

Contact Kathie Smith at food@theblade.com or 419-724-6155.

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