KEN FRANK'S LA TOQUE COOKBOOK

From the owner-chef at L.A.'s La Toque restaurant, a selection of recipes for food that the publishers describe, accurately enough, as fresh and sophisticated American-French cuisine. It's decidedly upscale, conceived and executed with flair, for cooks who go for ""elegant"" entertaining and don't mind the costs or the preliminary preparation (several recipes, for example, call for veal broth, a French restaurant staple less ubiquitous in home kitchens here). Salads include one of hot eels and one using three different duck preparations; there are first courses of cream-sauced fish; main dishes include venison with wine-poached pears, breast of duck with apples and Calvados, and boneless rabbit with morels. Frank's Brillat-Savarin cheese with fresh truffle debuted at a Baron de Rothchild $650-a-plate Best-of-Ten-Decades dinner; and for dessert there's an acknowledged ""demanding"" chocolate gÉnoise/chocolate mousse called ""the zigzag."" Haute.