Provence is uniquely blessed with natural beauty as well as some of the world's most appealing foods and liveliest wines. Patricia's culinary skills have transformed the signature ingredients of this quintessential French countryside into recipes so satisfying and exciting they will instantly become part of your daily repertoire. Here are 175 recipes from Patricia's farmhouse kitchen. Simple but imaginative "palate openers" such as Tuna Tapenade are followed by a profusion of salads, from All-Star Herb Salad, which captures the essence of the herb garden in a single bite, to the vibrant, cream-dressed greens of the Cheesemaker's Salad. Vegetables have a special place in the hearts and palates of Provence's cooks, so Patricia presents an entire chapter of quick-and-easy vegetable creations. Soul-satisfying soups have their own chapter, with such delights as Summer Pistou and the deeply flavorful Caramelized Fennel Soup. Pastas, too, are on the menu, with inventive dishes like Provencal Penne and Spaghetti with Green Olive Puttanesca, inspired by the produce of Patricia's village market. A chapter on breads includes everything from Crusty Wheat & Polenta Bread to an olive oil brioche, a local classic. Poultry and game are represented with everything from Butter-Roasted Herbed Chicken to Monsieur Henny's Rabbit Bouillabaisse. In the fish and shellfish department, you will savor Seared Pancetta-Wrapped Cod and The Vaison Fishmonger's Fresh Tuna Casserole. When it comes to meat, Patricia offers recipes for earthy daubes, the slow-simmered almost-stews so beloved by the French, along with homey favorites like Lemon-Thyme Lamb Chops, and Spit-Roasted Brine-Cured Pork. To round out the meal, there is a treasure trove of desserts based on seasonal fruits - Cherry-Almond Tart, Winemaker's Grape Cake, and Patricia's Apricot-Honey-Almond Tart, as effortless as child's play but as impressive as the most exacting work of the pastry-maker's art. Tomato clafoutis, herb-cured filet of beef Carpaccio, garlic family soup, Catalan tuna daube: these and 171 other recipes pour off the pages of this sumptuous coffee-table cookbook by the author of Bistro Cooking and Simply French . Wells concentrates on coaxing the utmost flavor out of simple, fresh food, and her French recipes are not all swimming in cream, oils, and fats: the filet, for example, profits not from a heavy sauce but from being wrapped for two days in tarragon, parsley, basil, thyme, and salt. In a couple of places Wells even commits the heresy, for a French-style chef, of switching a red wine used to simmer meat to a white wine. Wells, author of the well-known Food Lover's Guide to Paris (Workman, 1993. rev. ed.) and Simply French (LJ 9/15/91), among other titles, presents recipes for the dishes she cooks at home when she's not hot on the trail of the best food France has to offer. Like Lydie Marshall (Chez Nous: Home Cooking from the South of France, LJ 3/15/95), Wells has ingredients at hand any cook would envy, from olives, perfect fruit and even truffles on her own land to the fresh cheeses and Mediterranean fish offered by local merchants. With its dozens of full-color photographs, Wells's book is a more lavish affair than Marshall's, and her recipes are often richer and more elaborate as well: Artichoke, Parmesan, and Black Truffle Soup; Minted Crabmeat Salad; and Herb-Cured Fillet of Beef Carpaccio, accompanied by detailed wine suggestions (which may often be out of reach of those who do not have a farm in Provence). In any case, not to be missed. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. Francophile Wells has produced another in her series of paeans to the glories of French foodstuffs and cooking. This time she focuses on Provence, where Italian and French cooking couple so fruitfully. Provencal cuisine depends heavily on the herbs of the region, but many of those herbs have found their way to American cooking, making it relatively simple to reproduce the region's recipes. Lack of butter and the ubiquity of olive oil have made Provencal cooking particularly popular among the cholesterol-consumption fearful. Imaginative cooks on the lookout for something novel will relish Wells' treatment of penne, whereby pasta is cooked as if it were arborio rice: browned and then cooked slowly in chicken stock. Recommended for libraries where Wells' previous volumes have circulated well. Mark Knoblauch Patricia Wells At Home In Provence showcases more than 175 recipes, each augmented by kitchen lore, quirky quotes, and "trucs" borrowed from everyone from three-star chefs to the village butcher. Simple, clear, detailed recipes make any cook a master at preparing "Anne's Goat Cheese Gratin", "Curried Zucchini Blossoms", "Tunna Tapenade", Roasted Tomato Soup with Fresh Herbs", Fusili with Sausage, Fennel & Red Wine, "Spaghetti with Gren Olive Pasta Puttanesca", "Monsieur Henny's Rabbit Bouillabaisse", "Winemaker's Grape Cake", "Spanish Chocolate Marquise", and ove