America's Kitchen: Traditional and Contemporary Regional Cooking Featuring Recipes from America's Most Celebrated Chefs

""There is no American Cuisine,"" says Blue, the wine and spirits editor of Bon Appetit and the food commentator for CBS radio, who then divides America into nine culinary regions based on ingredients and cooking techniques. Some are named for areas, such as New England and the South, while three states (California, Hawaii and Florida) are credited with their own cuisines, as is one city (New Orleans). This volume is filled with pleasant surprises, for example the innovative Cheddar Croquette and Spinach Salad that appears among more standard New England fare such as Codfish Cakes. Each chapter benefits from a brief introduction to its locale's various influences and a description of the unusual items in its pantry (e.g., alligator and chayote for Florida). As the subtitle indicates, there are recipes from well-known chefs, for example Sweet Corn Soup with Shrimp and Chiles from Jeremiah Tower of Stars, but Blue's numerous contributions, such as an interesting Southwestern Margarita Roulade with lime marmalade, are fully up to snuff. The 100 full-color photographs by Joyce Oudkerk Pool make a perfect presentation for this impressively cohesive cookbook, which draws American cooking together by delineating its separate parts. (Nov.)