Le Cordon Bleu at Home

Here is a mother lode of contemporary cooking: lessons from the famed French Cordon Bleu cooking school. Unlike other culinary academies, which train cooking professionals, Le Cordon Bleu strives to educate the home cook in time-honored techniques invented and perfected by the French. And those who master the strategies of roasting, poaching and so on in the book's first section, ``Getting Started,'' will ``become familiar with a rich and varied repertoire of dishes that will do them honor and rival the best home cooking in France.'' Accordingly, the volume is organized by skill level with lessons ranging from French country fare like mussels with wine and cream sauce to more sophisticated creations--scampi bisque and orange mousse--to recipes representing the best (and most contemporary) of French cuisine, e.g., salmon rillettes with buckwheat blini and rum savarin with kiwis and strawberries. While illustrated with four-color photographs of foods and tough-to-master techniques, this is no coffee-table effort. It will be highly useful to serious cooks and novices. Cointreau is president of Le Cordon Bleu. Photos not seen by PW. Advertising; author tour. (Oct.)