Today’s Recipes for Today’s Cooks

Fantasy Food Fare ’88 Cookbook, compiled by the Los Angeles Planned Parenthood Guild ($10: ring binder, 145 pp.)

Committees of organizations putting out cookbooks for fund-raising purposes have a job of it. The recipes members contribute are usually a proofreader’s nightmare of muddle and muck. A mess.

The good news is that the recipes are usually the things people actually cook and eat these days. They are recipes that generally have withstood the test of time and are workable, despite the flaws in structure.

So it behooves a cookbook committee to put its recipes in order, to make them as comprehensible to the reader as they are to the contributors of each beloved recipe.

“Fantasy Food Fare ’88 Cookbook,” compiled by members of the Cookbook Committee of the Los Angeles Planned Parenthood Guild, does a good job in putting members’ recipes in order. And the recipes, as predicted, represent the current manner of cooking by people who feed families and entertain these days.

One quickly notices that along with the standard, time-tested club favorites, especially among salads and desserts (what club cookbook doesn’t contain stuffed tomato salad, cheese balls and bisque?), there is also a heavy layer of upscale recipes, such as scallops with Maui onion rings, braised veal shanks with tomato-orange coulis, orange-rice salad with shallot dressing and chicken quenelles with red pepper coulis.

Even ethnic recipes usually confined to everyday favorites, such as Armenian rice, and Chinese lemon chicken, gave way to such chi-chi newcomers as carpaccio, Thai coconut-shrimp, chicken couscous, bruschetta (a garlicky Italian roll), and chicken quenelles, reflecting the new standards of the times for recipes that reach out beyond the homey restrictions of the past. These recipes tell us that people are cooking what they have tasted in restaurants, in their travels and among the increasingly popular fooderies of Asian and European persuasion.

In the tradition of club cookbooks, you get the bonuses of cooking time charts, a seasoning, cheese, carving and storage guide, and even the ubiquitous spot removal guide.

For a copy of the book send $10 plus 75 cents postage and handling per book order to Planned Parenthood, 1920 Marengo St., Los Angeles 91367.

Here’s a recipe from the book.

WARM SALAD OF CORN AND POTATO WITH WALNUT VINAIGRETTE

8 ears corn

1 tablespoon sugar

1 head radicchio

1 bunch arugula

1 head red leaf lettuce

1 medium red potato

Walnut oil

Walnut Vinaigrette

Cook corn in a large pot of boiling water with sugar until tender, about 5 minutes. Cool, and cut corn from cobs. Set aside.

Thoroughly wash and dry radicchio, arugula and lettuce. Tear into small pieces and chill. Boil potato until just tender. When cool, peel and slice thinly. Set aside.

At serving time, brown potato slices in small amount walnut oil. Drain. Toss together chilled greens, hot potato slices and corn with enough Walnut Vinaigrette to moisten. Serve at once.

Walnut Vinaigrette

1/2 cup walnut oil

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Freshly ground pepper

Salt

Whisk together walnut oil, vinegar and pepper and salt to taste. Makes about 2/3 cup dressing.