Pasta Fresca: An Exuberant Collection of Fresh, Vivid, and Simple Pasta Recipes

`` Pasta fresca , to us, means pasta that is fresh, vivid, and uncomplicated,'' note La Place and Kleiman ( Cucina Fresca ), Californian champions of ``golden, glowing pasta'' who seek to do away with the ``strong, bitter tomato sauces that had been on the stove since time immemorial, with gigantic meatballs perched precariously on top.'' The authors prefer fare that ``expresses a sense of freedom'' and can be quickly prepared; their nearly 130 recipes for pasta soups and sauces, baked and stuffed pasta and gnocchisome intensified by anchovies, saffron, fennel tops or mascarponewill appeal to cooks with little time to spare. Many dishes are accessible and appetizing, especially the raw sauces (spaghetti with tomato-lemon sauce; beach pasta; pestos). More trendy are carrot-amaretti dumplings and ``salsa rosa con vodka.'' Though the authors assert that ``few people other than grandmothers have the time to make pasta at home,'' they offer instructions on how to roll your own by hand and machine, and provide a primer of pasta shapes, from orecchiette , ``little ears,'' to linguine , ``little tongues.'' Literary Guild alternate. (Nov.)