VILLAS AT TABLE: A Passion for Food and Drink

These collected essays from respected cookbook author and Town and Country food-columnist Villas range from appreciative profiles of American food personages (Craig Claiborne; Chicago restauranteur Jovan Trboyevic) to discourses on cassoulet or fois gras and paeans to ""The Unsung Sardine"" or ""The Lordly Spud."" Villas is a civilized writer and a reliable, well-traveled guide; and the recipes that conclude many of the pieces are similarly estimable and considered. Villas is also, however, consistently unsurprising--some might say stuffy, like a BBC chat--and thus perhaps better encountered one piece at a time, in Town and County. For inclusive food and cookery collections.