THE PSYCHOLOGIST'S SENSATIONAL COOKBOOK

There's nothing quite like being told what you always wanted to hear (a precept which should assure the Pearsons a healthy sale on their new eat-anything-you-wish cookbook) -- so forget about ""calories,"" ""carbohydrates"" and ""cholesterol."" Their basic premise -- that conventional diets create psychological deprivation -- makes sense. Hunger, the authors insist, is not an undifferentiated craving; foods ""serve emotional as well as nutritional needs."" How could anyone who's ever yearned for the security and comfort of Mama's homemade chicken soup doubt it? So this, their sequel to The Psychologist's Eat-Anything Diet (1973) is arranged to teach the glutton to be discriminating; to train his eating habits to ""sensuous sophistication""; to focus on ""texture, taste, smell and touch."" They provide a host of recipes for every mood. A chapter is devoted to traditionally forbidden gut-fillers like pasta, another concentrates on satisfying the most demanding sweet tooth, and still more recipes -- quick and good ones -- are for those occasions when you need something chewy, or something sour and tart, or something hot and spicy. The Pearsons swear that unlike traditional diets which have a ""long-run"" success rate of only 2 percent, this one, grounded in ""humanistic psychology"" will help you stay slim. In other words you can have your cake and eat it too -- in fact it's best that way. The dieting hedonist will gobble up every word.