Plowing a field similar to that cultivated by last year's Local Flavors, by Deborah Madison (who provides the foreword here), Ogden extols the pleasures of preparing fresh-from-the-garden meals. Co-owner with husband Shepherd of The Cook's Garden, a popular mail-order seed company, Ogden emphasizes the quality, taste and variety of produce now available from home and farmers' markets. Her recipes exhibit a deft hand in building dishes with complementary flavors, as in Zesty Lemon Cucumber Soup or Herbed Ricotta Gnocchi with Spinach-Arugula Pesto. Ogden really shines with her section on salads, which includes the unusual Warm Spinach and Strawberry Salad and Grilled Radicchio and Gorgonzola Salad. Although the focus is solidly on vegetables, herbs and fruits, non-vegetarian dishes range from the simple Baked Scrod with Fennel and Garlic Croutons to the more complicated Vietnamese Salad Rolls with Chicken and Shrimp, and Salmon in Phyllo Packets with Tomato and Ginger. Ogden frequently recommends difficult-to-find ingredients such as Chioggia (candy-striped) beets for Beet, Apple and Goat Cheese Salad, and black kale for Polenta with Tuscan Kale, but she also advises that the common variety of vegetables will suffice. Since gardening is a seasonal joy, recipes for preserves like Carrot and Orange Marmalade and Plum and Pear Chutney are a welcome addition, as are the homey drawings by Caldecott Award winner Azarian. (Mar.)
