Tom Valenti is Manhattan's grandmaster of comfort food, a much-touted chef who has made this beloved cooking his hallmark. And on any given night, you'll find him at his wildly successful Upper West Side restaurant Ouest, cooking hearty soups and chowders, casseroles, chili, stews, and slowly braised, cut-with-a-spoon tender meats, for the likes of Bill Clinton, Steven Spielberg, Charlie Rose, and Barbara Walters.

In Tom Valenti's Soups, Stews, & One-Pot Meals, Valenti and coauthor Andrew Friedman dish up the flavor that we've come to expect from a celebrated New York chef, without any of the fuss. Here are realistic recipes for the home cook--most made in a single vessel--all based on the fact that the right ingredients, left alone cooking in one pot with virtually no intervention from the cook, will steadily build glorious flavor. This is make-ahead food that gets better a day or two later, this is dinner party food, holiday food, food that's made on the weekend and savored throughout a busy week.

Beautifully designed with 16 pages of color photography, the book includes more than 125 recipes for delicious, deeply satisfying meals including Tomato, Bread, and Parmesan Soup; Creamy Smoked Cod Chowder; Lentil and Garlic Sausage Stew; Lobser Shepherd's Pie; Texas-Style Chili; and meltingly tender meats, such as Florentine Pot Roast with Red Wine, Mushrooms, and Tomatoes and Slow-Cooked Chicken in a Pot.