In no other period of our country's history has the food scene changed so rapidly.

Exciting new ingredients are available everywhere, expanding our culinary horizons. Even casual meals have globe-trotting flavors. We want memorable dishes, and we want them to be healthy for our families and our planet. And with our busy schedules, we want them on the table faster than ever.

A new culinary world calls for a new cookbook. Gourmet Today responds to our changing foodscape with more vegetarian recipes, more recipes for popular dishes from every corner of the world, more recipes for stunning meals ready in 30 minutes or less, more simple ways to prepare all the vegetables in the farmers market, advice on choosing sustainable fish, chicken, and beef, tips on throwing an easy cocktail party, more recipes for flavorful techniques like grilling, and more recipes for the new ingredients flooding our market.

Each of the over 1,000 recipes was selected by editor in chief Ruth Reichl, a best-selling author in her own right, who wrote the introductions to each chapter. Every recipe has been tested and cross-tested in the Gourmet test kitchen so every cook, whether a first-timer or a veteran, gets impeccable results.

With menus for holidays and other seasonal occasions, an authoritative glossary of ingredients (plus mail-order sources), and hundreds of sidebars on ingredients and handy techniques from the test kitchen, Gourmet Today is the indispensable book for today's cook.

"In this follow-up to The Gourmet Cookbook, editor Reichl amasses one of the most comprehensive cooking resources available. She offers a diverse range of recipes that reflect the ever-changing American palate and the many cultures that have influenced it. Alongside Stilton cheese puff are recipes for babaghanouj, bangers and mash, Armenian lamb pizza, arepas with black beans and feta, and Vietnamese fried spring rolls. Informative sidebars provide details on a huge array of topics, from what salt to use when to preserving fish. Line drawings demonstrate folding techniques for dumplings and spanakopita and show how to trim and stuff artichokes. Cook's notes throughout provide valuable advice on how to store food, how long food will last and which steps can be done ahead of time. Most recipes are geared toward time-pressed cooks and can be prepared in less than 30 minutes. In addition to the usual categories of soups, fish, poultry, beef and desserts, Reichl includes substantial chapters on vegetarian main courses and grilled dishes. Highlights include eggplant souffl, grilled lemon-lime chicken legs and sticky spicy ribs. Comprehensive, appetizing and thoroughly tested, this mammoth collection is the book no kitchen should be without. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Ruth Reichl, Gourmets editor in chief, is the author of the best-selling memoirs Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me with Apples, and Garlic and Sapphires, and the forthcoming Not Becoming My Mother and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way. She is executive producer of the two-time James Beard Award-winning Gourmets Diary of a Foodie, which airs on public television across the country, and the editor of the Modern Library Food Series. Before coming to Gourmet, she was the restaurant critic for the New York Times, receiving two James Beard Awards for her work. She lectures frequently on food and culture.