Southwest: The Beautiful Cookbook

Fenzl, food editor of Southwest Passages , who also runs the Les Gourmettes Cooking School in Phoenix, Ariz., and Kolpas ( Pasta Menus ) add a new regional volume to the ``Beautiful'' series. Like the forerunners in the series, this one is scaled oversize to accommodate not only color photographs of avocado pasta and tomatillo soup, but also of the local landscapes, such as a Native American powwow and New Mexico's San Juan mountains. As such, Southwest can be read as a gastronomic travel book, filled with escapist textures and tastes. The book is organized by locale (e.g., the Rio Grande Basin gets one chapter) and by genre (desserts and beverages; soups, stews and chilis). It's both picturesque and practical: Kolpas sets the scene well for upscale-indigenous meals with his surveys of Southwest history and habits, while Fenzl offers practical and appealing recipes (especially for salsas and the like, and for appetizers). So while the book looks glamorous, it is also useful. (Apr.)