Recipes: A Collection for the Modern Cook
Susan Spungen, the founding food editor ofMartha Stewart Living, knows her cooking.Recipes, her collection of 100-plus formulas for home cooking, is deceptively unassuming; cooks at all levels of skill and sophistication will find it a source of superior, easy dish making--and instruction.  Arranged by cooking techniques, the recipes include basics and old favorites like Pan-Seared Striped Bass, Rosemary Focaccia, and Herb-Crusted Lamb, as well as reworkings and "newer" dishes like Peanut Noodles with Mango, Baby Back Ribs with Coffee BBQ Sauce, and Pancetta Chicken with Lemon Fries. A section on sweets offers the tempting likes of Saucepan Brownies, Caramel Apple Tart, and Lemon Curd Cheesecake. Spungen's accomplishment is to provide a well chosen collection that readers will turn to again and again. Her small volume is thus more useful than many of its larger cousins, which seem overdone by comparison.  Spungen's stint at the magazine has also undoubtedly attuned her to the importance of the visual, and each recipe is accompanied by a color photo of the dish in all its simple glory. With a forward by the very Martha herself, the book deserves wide kitchen circulation.--Arthur Boehm