Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special: More Than 275 Recipes for Soups, Stews, Salad & Extras

The famous Ithaca, N.Y., restaurant produces another spin-off of its wildly popular 1977 Moosewood Cookbook, one of the first to present vegetarianism as a viable option to the meat-eating masses. Although it has been updated to include portobello mushrooms, wilted greens, kale and quinoa, the Moosewood paradigm remains firmly in place: lots of veggies, beans and lentils, and plenty of ethnic creations mainly in soup and salad specials that range from the predictable, such as North African Couscous Salad, to the unique Korean Pine Nut Porridge and Tomato Rasam. While restaurant regulars will be pleased to have such favorites as Chocklay's Tibetan Lentil Soup at their fingertips, as well as refreshing departures such as Seafood, Soups and Salads sections, some recipes are reworkings of earlier Moosewood dishes--for example, Kasha with Mushrooms from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home here becomes Eastern European Kasha & Mushrooms. Excellent organization (recipes are alphabetized within sections), complete nutritional information and menu suggestions, as well as a glossary, make this book easy to navigate; with its plethora of intriguing combinations, cooks may benefit most by skimming for ideas and modifying dishes to taste. Agent, Goodman Associates; 8-city author tour. (Oct.)