PAUL BOCUSE IN YOUR KITCHEN

A pleasant and practical-minded compilation of some 220 recipes--specifically chosen to show that famous chefs too appreciate the elementary and everyday--here gets a sort of Dolby-stereo-and-wide-screen treatment. The directions are simply and quite clearly written; the ingredients are supposed to be ordinary and affordable (though a calf's head might not fall into that category in this country). There are a lot of rock-bottom basics (mayonnaise, white sauce, steak au poivre, baked potatoes--alas, in aluminum foil)--along with various easy but sprightly entries (olives marinated with a few vivid seasonings, anchovy spread, warm lentil salad with diced fried salt pork), and some versions of lengthier though not impossibly arduous classics (pot au feu, rillettes of rabbit, a ratatouille without peppers). But nice though the material is, who is it for? If Bocuse is addressing tyros on limited budgets, they can betake themselves to more affordable and more compendious sources of wisdom. The down-to-earth tenor clashes ludicrously with the chichi and costly presentation.