Recipes from an Ecological Kitchen

This new work by Sass ( Cooking Under Pressure ) offers a timely view of the relatively new--and constantly increasing--bounty of organic foods available in many urban areas. Recipes are both numerous and practical, keeping the author's promise of ``sophisticated flavor and strong visual appeal.''28 Some of the best dishes include carrots with olives and 20 cloves of garlic, curried yellow split-pea soup with squash and raisins, sun-dried tomato dip, and fig and hazelnut pudding. Interspersed are excellent ideas like marinades intended to give ``that wallflower tofu some assertiveness training,'' and how to double or triple batch-cook beans and freeze the rest. Utilizing the pressure cooker and the wok (yet not explaining why the microwave oven is ignored here), Sass shows how to get ``a healthy, well-balanced meal on the table in record time.'' The highlight of the book, however, is the 75-page alphabetical list of ingredients and storage information on a vast variety of New Age (and oldtime) produce, grains, beans and even aquatic vegetables. Refreshingly, this is obviously not textbook information, but is based on invaluable real-life, real-kitchen use of these items. (Aug.)