COOKING WITH COLETTE

Fancy French cooking for children as taught by Colette Rossant of PBS TV's ""Zee Cooking School."" We're convinced that youngsters, or at least younger teenagers, can rise to the demands of assembling souffles, soups, crepes, mousses (with aspic) and sausages. We're less convinced that this is the best book for anyone responsible enough to undertake such projects. Rossant does have a sensible method: she begins with basic recipes, a no-fail dough, for example, and repeats them in more and more complicated variations. Still, cold canned fruit is not a very exciting filling for that first real homemade crust (other suggestions do come later) and anyone who will tackle a quiche deserves a more exciting tomato sauce recipe than the one here. Some directions are sketchy (the ingredients don't specify fresh mushrooms or explain cuts of meat); and the instruction to taste the raw pork mixture for pate is surprising, at the least. And while there's nothing wrong with a dash of brandy here and there, it is oddly ubiquitous considering the intended audience. Rossant's bustling, bold approach may work well with live pupils, but if there's a grownup adviser or even a standard reference like Joy of Cooking around, the young gourmet might do just as well to take his lessons straight from Julia.