Deeply rooted in ancient rituals, the seasonal rhythms of the land of Israel, and biblical commandments, the Jewish holidays mark a time for Jews around the world to reconnect with their spiritual lives, celebrate their history, and enjoy tasty foods laden with symbolic meaning. With Phyllis and Miriyam Glazer's "The Essential Book of Jewish Festival Cooking" as your guide, you will gain a rich understanding of the Jewish calendar year and its profound link to the signs of nature and the produce of the earth in each season. This landmark volume addresses a central question often left unanswered: Why do we eat what we eat on these important days?

Organized by season, the ten chapters cover the major holidays and feast days of the Jewish year, providing more than two hundred tempting recipes, plus menus and tips for creative and meaningful holiday entertaining. In-depth essays opening each chapter illuminate the origins, traditions, and seasonal and biblical significance of each holiday and its foods, making the book a valuable resource for Jewish festival observance. Inspired recipes add a fresh, contemporary twist as they capture the flavors of the seasonal foods enjoyed by our ancestors. For Passover, prepare such springtime delights as Roasted Salmon with Marinated Fennel and Thyme, alongside Braised "Bitter Herbs" with Pistachios. On Shavuot, characterized by the season's traditional bounty of milk and the wheat harvest, try fresh homemade cheeses; creamy, comforting Blintzes; or luscious Hot and Bubbling Semolina and Sage Gnocchi. At Purim, create a Persian feast fit for a king and learn new ideas for mishloah manot, the traditional gifts of food.

For top chef Ludo Lefebvre, cooking is a sensual process that involves all five senses at every stage of preparation. In Crave, Lefebvre offers more than one hundred original, elegant, and unbelievably delicious recipes that teach us the joy -- and skill -- of cooking with the senses.

In dishes such as his signature Glazed Langoustines with Ceylon Cinnamon, he shows that through our senses we can bring creativity and a sense of playfulness to cooking while still preserving the great traditions behind cuisine. Lefebvre brings a whole new level to the sense of taste with groundbreaking techniques for contrasting and balancing spices; he shows how to choose meat and produce and how to test food through touch; he teaches the difference between the sound of butter and oil that's ready for cooking and the sound of burning; he offers visual cues that can enhance technique and presentation; and he introduces recipes that tantalize the powerful sense of smell to heighten both the flavor and experience of a dish.

Along with his desire to put delightful recipes into the hands of the home chef, Lefebvre wants us to expand our perception and understanding of the cooking process. "I want people to cook with love. I want them to be aware of what they're doing," says Lefebvre. "The act of cooking can be as much of a pleasure as eating, and if you really cook with your senses, you begin to find that cooking isn't work -- it's play."

These inspiring recipes will encourage you to slow down and become fully absorbed as you learn to cook with and for all five senses:

See: Oysters on the Half Shell with Red Beet Jelly and Shallot Cream Touch: Fried Stuffed Tomato Beignets Smell: Chicken Etouffee in Dried Verbena and Curry Leaves Hear: Roast Beef with Long Pepper and Spiced French Fries Taste: Lemon Sorbet with Saffron

In The Improvisational Cook, Sally Schneider helps home cooks declare their independence from recipes and set lists of ingredients and offers an invitation to a fun, more spontaneous way to cook with whatever is on hand. But how do you become an improvisational cook?

Once you understand how a basic technique or a recipe works, you can then begin to improvise. Start with one of The Improvisational Cook's essential recipes, such as Caramelized Onions. A special Understanding section follows, explaining the internal logic of the recipe and its creative possibilities. With that in mind, a savory onion jam a real onion dip a quick bruschetta topped with the onions, anchovies, and olives or a rustic onion soup with dried porcini mushrooms is just a step or two beyond. Sally's notated improvisations illustrate simple, clever approaches and can be followed as is or used as a jumping-off point.

The possibilities are endless. Slow-roast fish at 300 degrees, along with some cherry tomatoes and olives for a sauce. Prepare a savory lemon jam to go with lamb or veal chops, or turn it into a cake filling. Roast a whole lobster instead of a fish in a salt crust. Add minced rosemary or Earl Grey tea to butter cookie dough. Turn a brownie batter into an elegant pepper-scented chocolate cake.

Sally gives you the know-how to embellish, adapt, change, alter, modify, and experiment in your cooking with plenty of encouragement and helpful information -- the tools and insights you need to find your own voice and cook improvi-sationally. These include an exploration of the inside of improvisation -- the creative mind-set, where to find inspiration, how to deal with the unexpected, practical approaches to learning what goes with what, including a chart of classic flavor affinities, and tips on organizing your kitchen to make improvising easier, from long-keeping pantry staples to makeshift tools.

With The Essential Mediterranean, Nancy Harmon Jenkins continues her lifelong exploration of Mediterranean food -- how it is grown, prepared, and shared around the table. In her latest book, Ms. Jenkins introduces cooks and readers to a cluster of core ingredients and foodways that are fundamental to all of the Mediterranean's diverse cuisines. She shows how the Mediterranean attitude toward food -- a combination of respect, integrity, enthusiasm, and sheer joy -- can be cultivated across the Atlantic.

In twelve informative and captivating chapters, the author focuses on the core ingredients common to the diverse cuisines of the region: salt, wine and vinegar, pasta and couscous, bread, olive oil, Old World legumes, New World peppers and tomatoes, dairy products, the family pig, and the resources of the sea. In each chapter she travels to a different corner of the Inner Sea to describe how and why these essential ingredients are obtained, what determines their quality, and where they fit in local cuisines.

Each chapter draws on history and ethnography as much as on the lives of Mediterranean people today. Readers will delight in Majid Mahjoub, the colorful Tunisian Shakespeare of olive oil, and commiserate with Provencal cheese maker Yves van Weddingen as he struggles to maintain his standards in the face of bureaucratic demands. Home cooks will garner a new appreciation of high-quality Spanish jamon de bellota as they follow the Trigo family through the annual winter ritual of transforming the family pig into hams and sausages.

More than 170 contemporary, accessible recipes, simple to reproduce at home, bring the foods and the regions alive, while additional chapters include basic procedures and staples, as well as a helpful guide to ingredient sources.

Raymond Sokolov applies to vegetables the original concept of his book THE COOK'S CANON: 101 Classic Recipes Everyone Should Know, fusing imaginative recipes with a wealth of food lore. His more than 40 years' experience as a cookbook author and food historian provide a wealth of background for vegetable recipes from around the world, from traditional American (succotash) to Chinese (Sichuan spicy tofu) as well as French (Spinach Mornay) and Italian (Pasta e faglioli).

All the recipes are high points of the culinary imagination, great dishes in which vegetables are the featured ingredient. This is not a vegetarian cookbook. Many of the recipes include meat, but with the vegetables at center stage.

For each vegetable discussed and each recipe, Sokolov provides historical and cultural background with many witty comments based on his wide reading in food history and his training as a classicist.

Classic Comparisons:

CHEZ PANISSE VEGETABLES by Waters, Harper, 1996, $35, 0060171472 (113,914cc, isis)

Thanks to the ever-increasing number of kosher products available to home cooks, it's never been easier or more satisfying to prepare delicious, wholesome, and healthful kosher meals. In this new collection of exciting recipes, acclaimed journalist, cooking teacher, and cookbook author Faye Levy presents a progressive, upbeat approach to nutritious kosher cuisine that highlights the pleasure of preparing and eating mouthwatering dishes that promote well-being.

Kosher foods are being used in more and more American homes, and their abundance and diversity is increasing at an impressive rate. From the traditional to the exotic, from extra-virgin olive oil to tasty cheeses, from spicy condiments to Asian-style sauces, from Latin flavors to Indian, Levy introduces both novice and seasoned cooks to a grand array of international ingredients. By showcasing them in such dishes as Poached Turkey with Mushrooms, Wheat Berries, and Dill; Diced Vegetable Salad with Pepitas and Papaya; Marseilles-Style Fish with Saffron and Fennel; and Turkish Autumn Vegetable Casserole with Chicken, she shows how they will add zest to any menu while maintaining solid nutritional value.

Fruits of the Harvest: Recipes to Celebrate Kwanzaa and Other Holidays offers more than 125 treasured recipes from people of African descent all over the world: Jerked Pork Chops and Fresh Papaya Chutney from Jamaica New-Fashioned Fried Chicken, a dish from the Deep South and Tiebou Dienne, Senegalese herb-stuffed fish steaks with seasoned rice. In addition to main courses, there are recipes for a full range of dishes, from appetizers to soups, salads, side dishes, vegetables, breads, beverages, and, of course, desserts. Fried Okra, Antiguan Pepper Pot, Ambrosia Salad and Potato Salad, Garlic-Chedder Grits Souffle, Caipirinha, and Sweet Potato Tarts in Peanut Butter Crusts are but a few of the delights featured here.