MORE HOME COOKING: A Writer Returns to...

MORE HOME COOKING: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin (HarperPerennial: $12.; 224 pp.). The author, most recently, of “A Big Storm Knocked It Over� chats amiably about her favorite foods and how to prepare them. Colwin dismisses elaborate recipes and stresses simple, hearty soups, stews, salads and deserts. Although she notes the nutritional value of certain dishes, she doesn’t make mealtime sound like a bio-chemistry lesson, commenting wittily that “the modern cook stands in the kitchen with cookbook in one hand and The New England Journal of Medicine in the other.�