Required reading
        On days when the only thing I could possibly manage to make for dinner is warmed-up restaurant leftovers, or maybe chips and salsa, I resent cookbooks like Bon Appetit Keep It Simple (Crown; $29.95). I'm not interested to know that goat cheese and herb souffli is “simpler than might be imagined” or that you “roast a duck much like you roast a chicken” (not mentioning how much trouble it is to clean up afterward). But this book would be a good step up for someone who only cooks in the microwave and wants to learn some basic techniques and recipes for standard dishes: making an omelet, sauteing chicken breasts, whipping cream.

        While the recipes teach skills, they also have contemporary flair. There's roast lamb with olive crust, red bell pepper sauce and basil oil; bulgur with roasted tomatoes, onions and garbanzo beans; vanilla angel food cake with mango-ginger sauce. Just don't believe the color photos. They look way better than your efforts will.

Timely Tip
        Good baking recipes will mention which part of the oven to use. It may seem picky, but it makes a difference. For instance, in Keep It Simple, the bottom third of the oven is recommended for baking two-crust fruit pies, so that the bottom crust is exposed to more bottom heat and cooks completely instead of getting soggy. Pizza also should be baked low in the oven for a good crisp crust. On the other hand, scones should be baked in the top part of the oven so the bottoms don't burn.

Menu Decoder
        It is remarkable with what speed ingredients move from the realm of specialty, gourmet status to everyday use on the menus of national chains. There's no better example than the appearance of Asiago cheese on Bruegger's new square bagels.

        Originally a sheep's milk cheese, it has been made on the high plateau of Asiago in northeastern Italy for a thousand years or more. (It's now also made in the United States). It's a grana-type cheese (like Parmesan) with a pungent flavor.

We Tried It
        Oh, for heavens' sake. Everyone knows bagels are round, with a round hole in the middle. But Bruegger's now has a square bagel — a larger, softer square bagel especially for sandwiches. It comes in two varieties: sesame or Asiago cheese. I've always thought Bruegger's Bagels were pretty good, and I've never had any trouble eating the “Hotshot Turkey” sandwich on a regular bagel, but it's true that bagels were invented to hold cream cheese. It can be a challenge to eat a sandwich on something so thick and chewy.

        The square bagels are, indeed, easier to eat. You have a corner to start on, and the bagel is softer, so it squishes down to fit in your mouth better. But that's also their drawback: they squish. Not as much as, say, Wonder Bread, but not like a real bagel, either. Here's a strange thing: Making them square adds 75 cents to the price.

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