I will go a step further, and wonder why are they not offering HELP, or is their concern Only of SELF INTEREST? And why in some cases are they the PERPETRATORS???? 
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Thanks to Bob Masullo

Mariani's Virtual Gourmet Newsletter, 
October 7, 2002
by John Mariani 

THE SOPRANOS FAMILY COOKBOOK: Fuggedaboudit! 

I shall leave it to the New York Times to gush breathlessly over the HBO series “The Sopranos” as being one of the greatest works of art in the past century and to clue-less university professors to compare the writers of the show to Aeschylus, Shakespeare, and Racine. 

Having seen only three episodes of the series myself, I don’t pretend to have much to say about its content except that, as an Italian-American, I am appalled by the vilest of ethnic stereotyping and its crass attempt to make these, the most vicious, most foul-mouthed, and most immoral characters on television into some kind of loveable family drama. 

To capitalize further on this despicable portrayal of Italian-Americans as Chianti-swigging, ziti-gorging pigs in a cookbook is, quite clearly, nothing more than commercialism at its worst. The Sopranos Cookbook “compiled by Artie Bucco” (a restaurant owner in the series) with recipes by Michele Scicolone shores up every cliché about Italian-Americans’ eating habits as practiced by gargantuan, dyspeptic mobsters who wouldn’t know good Italian food if it came up and whacked them on the head. 

It is particularly distressing to see a respected Italian-American food writer going along with this sham, as is the inclusion (for what possible reason?) of an essay on Neapolitan cooking by an Italian-American librarian from the Newark Public Library (the Sopranos live in New Jersey). Ms. Scicolone has done some fine work in the past, including her books The Antipasto Table and A Fresh Taste of Italy. 

But to contribute to this perpetuation of such an unseemly Italian-American stereotype is appalling. (At least the equally insulting-and bestselling--Mafia Cookbook was written, supposedly, by a former Mafioso, Joseph Ianuzzi, whom you would expect to cash in on his own notoriety.) 

To those who believe I’m being overly sensitive to something that is “only a TV show,” I would reply that it is unimaginable that any publisher would spew forth a Jewish-American cookbook based on a corrupt Jewish-American lawyer character who makes his living getting murderers, child molesters, and rapists off, or an African-American cookbook about an African-American Harlem drug king who sells crack to school children. (For one thing, you will never see such a show on TV because protests by the Anti-Defamation League and the NAACP would shut down its production.) 

It is equally unimaginable that any respected Jewish-American like or African-American food writer would have anything to do with such travesties. For all I know The Sopranos Family Cookbook may be full of wonderful recipes. What I know for sure is that its publisher, Warner Books, most certainly is trading on the worst stereotypes of Italian-Americans who have to suffer the indignities of being lumped with monsters and mobsters as a matter of course. I don’t want to burn this book; I just think that anyone associated with it should be ashamed of themselves. --John Mariani 

Food and Wine Community -- Mariani's Virtual Gourmet Newsletter 
http://communities.prodigy.net/food/john.html 

John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the Harper Collection. He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink (Lebhar-Friedman), The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink (Broadway), and, with his wife Galina, the award-winning new Italian-American Cookbook (Harvard Common Press). 
Amazon.com: buying info: The Italian-American Cookbook: A Feast of Food from a Great American Cooking Tradition