The Table Beckons: Thoughts and Recipes from the Kitchen of Alain Senderens

Chef--of Chez Lucas Carton in Paris--and author ( The Three-Star Recipes of Alain Senderens ), Senderens also writes on food and eating for L'Express. As adapted here, these columns (47 in number) feature essays of varying length and depth on a wide-range of topics, such as wines with fish (``Vine and Sea''), scallops (``A Shell Divine'') and black currants (``Pearls to Cultivate''), each followed by several recipes. Senderens's authoritative, idiosyncratic approach encompasses food history and cooking processes (``Charting Tenderness'' describes various cuts of beef) as well as discussions about ingredients. About soups, he writes that ``by boiling water in a vessel, man brought food from the real of nature to that of culture.'' The simple, direct prose marries well with uncomplicated recipes that, aimed at the home cook, generally feature few but fresh, pure ingredients, straightforwardly prepared; an occasional ingredient, like the caul fat in Lapin a l'infusion de sauge , may be hard for Americans to come by. Senderens comes off as an inventive purist with wide scope: ``Mango Marvels'' includes recipes for mangoes prepared with duck, with chicken, in a relish, a salad and in a simple sorbet. This is traditionalist fare with a Gallic flair. (Oct.)