A Fresh Look at Saucing Foods: Pairing Great Foodswith Contemporary Sauces

This collection of inventive recipes and original as well as classical sauce-making techniques is as much a volume about saucing as it is about pairing ``flavors that work together and enhance each other's qualities.'' While inspired by her childhood love of sauces (from ''Sunday roasts glistening with gravy'' to ``chicken breasts smothered in condensed cream-of-something soup''), food writer and editor Davis contributes recipes that are refreshingly contemporary and reveal the practiced hand of a skillful cook and include innumerable suggestions for cooking, storing and serving. A sampling of the best: baked polenta with sage cream, grilled fish with rhubarb-mustard sauce, beef tenderloin with Stilton, walnuts, and port, and baked apples with cardamon cream (which the author calls a ``stunning, luxurious sauce with a haunting flavor''). The backbone of the recipes is a serviceable collection of master sauces and techniques, with a wealth of variations included. The passion and clarity of the writing make reading this nearly as satisfying an experience as sampling the recipes. (Feb.)