Food: Cookbooks to Give Thanks For

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With restaurant fever still epidemic in the U.S. and the national passion for "take-out" almost as strong, it is a bit surprising -- and heartwarming -- that publishers keep investing in cookbooks. Clearly, they believe there are plenty of old-fashioned souls who persist in doing their own cooking, if not for workaday meals, then at least on weekends and for guests. In fact, that is the tone of this year's better cookbooks. They tend to emphasize dishes that are stylish and special, though without the fussiness seen in recent years.

American regional cooking remains well represented on the nation's bookshelves. But now, as palates tire of the green chili, blue cornmeal and black beans of the Southwest, attention is turning to the vivid and ethnically mixed cuisine of the Pacific Northwest -- with its salmon and oysters, wild berries and herbs, tree fruits and game. The best culinary guide to the region is Northwest Bounty by Schuyler Ingle and Sharon Kramis (Simon & Schuster; $18.95). The enticing recipes should inspire Americans across the country to try piquant specialties like pickled Walla Walla sweet onions and such cross- cultural inventions as Sichuan pepper-broiled salmon with cilantro sour- cream sauce.

New American cooking is the theme of The Trellis Cookbook by Marcel Desaulniers (Weidenfeld & Nicolson; $25). Unlike most recipes from restaurant chefs, these from the Trellis Restaurant in Colonial Williamsburg can be managed by mere mortals with only two hands. Some dishes have many steps (grilled smoked lamb with artichokes and slab bacon on fresh-thyme fettuccine), but Desaulniers outlines how to organize ahead. Corn and tomato fritters, roast loin of pork with walnut butter and a chocolate-praline ice cream terrine are winners.

If you think you've heard the last word on pasta, then you have not read Giuliano Bugialli's new work, Bugialli on Pasta (Simon & Schuster; $24.95). This time the exacting cooking teacher presents a magnificently clear illustrated work not only on the rolling and shaping of pasta but also on the preparing of artichokes, squid and other ingredients that go into sauces. In time for winter entertaining are such irresistibles as the pappardelle (wide noodles) with duck or lamb and cannelloni plump with a wild-mushroom stuffing.

Paula Wolfert's World of Food (Harper & Row; $25) is a solid, serious and sensuous collection of her favorite recipes, sprinkled liberally with her usual didactic asides. A specialist in the cuisines of Morocco, southwest France and the Mediterranean, Wolfert wanders afield and offers up not only caponata, the Sicilian vegetable appetizer, and the fragrant tagine stews of Morocco but also the lusty Alsatian casserole of meat, onions and potatoes known as backeoffe.