Good Enough to Eat: Bountiful Home Cooking

Similar to The Silver Palate cookbooks in both concept and format, this volume is a collection of some 250 recipes from the eponymous New York City restaurant chain owned by the authors. Their philosophy embodies less city sophistication than culinary nostalgia, and their technique will strike some readers as homey but others as cloying. The recipes are an example of comfort food. Sour-cream blueberry coffee cake, french toast with cinnamon-swirl bread and chocolate waffles with almond butter show up for breakfast. Desserts feature pear-and-ginger pie, cranberry-orange crisp and lemon-meringue pie with chocolate-graham crust. A typical meal is meatloaf with spicy mushroom gravy, mashed potatos and dilled peas and carrots. Simple but not simplistic, these dishes justify the title. Better Homes and Gardens Book Club alternate. (April)