Jeanne Lemlin is aware that we're all vegetarians some of the time and that what we crave is delicious food that is quick and simple to prepare. In Simple Vegetarian Pleasures, she shares her dedicated, relaxed approach to good food with two hundred tempting recipes for flavorful meals.

The flexibility and range of Jeanne's recipes encourage you to take advantage of seasonal fruits and vegetables, and her menu suggestions for every occasion help frazzled cooks move serenely, almost effortlessly from soup to nuts. With tips for keeping your pantry and refrigerator stocked to simplify meal preparation and vibrantly flavored recipes - for stovetop dishes, make-ahead casseroles and gratins, rich vegetable stocks, salads, and a range of pizzas, quesadillas, sandwiches, and vegetarian burgers -vegetarian cooking becomes easy, fast, and fabulous. Whether you're vegetarian all the time or occasionally enjoy a meatless dish, Jeanne Lemlin has your food right here - simply delicious and deliciously simple.

Ignoring all the simplicity stuff, however, leaves the cook with a cookbook filled with recipes pulling on the flavors of all corners of the world. Fill your pantry according to the master plan, shop wisely, plan ahead, and have at it. This is vegetarian cooking of a sophisticated kitchen and palate (using "sophisticated" in the title would presumably scare off anyone not inclined to struggle with food). Many of the recipes could fall out of cookbooks of various ethnic origins where a mainly vegetarian diet is the rule rather than the exception.

What this book really helps us do is move beyond the notion of vegetarianism as just so much brown rice, ragg socks, hairy legs, and save the whales. That is, Simple Vegetarian Pleasures moves right to the heart of cuisine, of food with soul, and makes the absence of meat an insignificant thing. It's that simple.

Ultimately, that it is simple, and that it is vegetarian, means a lot less than that it is exceedingly pleasurable. Enjoy these lush recipes. --Schuyler Ingle