The Nine Seasons Cookbook: More Than 150 Recipes to Get You from Mud Season to Fall Foliage and Back Again

Haley, food columnist for the Keene Sentinel in Keene, N.H., maintains that in New England there are nine distinct seasons, each of which has its suitable foods and menus. The more than 150 recipes here are thus divided by season, which include the ""Season of Mud and Sugar,'' ``Budding,'' ``Little Harvest'' and the ``Impossible Season.'' Besides familiar and widespread dishes like roast leg of lamb with white wine and herbs, corn salad with anchovy dressing and a custardy macaroni and cheese casserole, Haley offers such indigenous delights as dandelion salad, rhubarb meringue pie and fiddlehead lemon soup. Neither traditional post-pilgrim fare nor modern ``New American,'' this cuisine represents contemporary New England at its best and is accompanied by descriptive passages evocative of country life. (February)