The Good Health Microwave Cookbook

Experienced cooks--health-oriented or not--will find Jerome's ( The Complete Chicken ) take on an often misunderstood, yet common enough kitchen tool inspiring. Recognizing that microwave recipes often merely mimic conventional methods, the author serves up what he calls ``a new approach to home cooking . . . with recipes that use the potential of the microwave oven to its fullest.'' One novelty is his ingenious method of cooking up fast, nutritious and flavorful soups (carrot and sweet potato soup, black bean consomme and parsnip bisque with chives) by creating a broth in the same ``pot'' as the soup proper is cooked in. (Most of these recipes require no broth per se but create the effect of one by incorporating a chicken breast or turkey drumsticks.) To Jerome's credit, recipes are refreshingly simple, requiring little rotating or uncovering during the microwaving process. However, substitutions would have been welcome for ingredients not universally easy to locate, such as fermented black beans and steel-cut oatmeal. On the whole, though, he has assimilated the best ideas of colleagues (James Beard, Barbara Kafka) and added something special of his own in this thoroughly piquant book. (Jan.)