PIERRE FRANEY'S COOKING IN AMERICA

French-born-and-trained Franey (Cuisine Rapide, 1989, etc.) hops on the eat-American bandwagon for this book and an accompanying PBS-TV series—but his and coauthor Flaste's take on American cooking is purely their own. They begin by roughing it in beef country with Franey feeding the cowboys steak—with bÇarnaise sauce and wine. After a jaunt in Puerto Rico that yields some typical island dishes, the authors are soon cooking up an individual salmon lasagna adapted from one prepared at Disney World. West Indian food on St. Thomas; nine different potato recipes (one of them potato crab-cakes with cräme fraåche) that they set at Seattle's Pike Place market; and more salmon, some with champagne sauce, that Franey and Flaste work into an Alaskan location—these are just a few of the dishes cooked up for this interesting, unpredictable TV/book project.