Pasta and Other Special Salads

This unassuming book, with its collection of some 150 salad recipes, could well become a staple of menus for the reader for years to come. These versatile pasta, rice, grain, potato and bean salads can grace formal dinners, casual buffets, easygoing picnics and everyday meals. Dyer makes use of such contemporary ingredients as sun-dried tomatoes and various flavors of vinegar but doesn't hesitate to suggest cost-cutting substitutes. Within chapters, the recipes are interspersed without rhyme or reason: a cold Shanghai-style noodle salad is next to rotelle with marinated eggplant and hot fettucine with seafood and basil-cream dressing. Nonetheless, there are many valuable recipes that will render the book dog-eared in no time. (May)