Welcome to Your Crisis is a new book by Laura Day. She has nailed modern life in one short phrase. Her book will be published May 3, and I'm stressing out waiting for it.

When I'm stressed, I eat. Pizza usually, followed by week-old fruit salad, the last three spoonfuls of Chunky Monkey, some raisins, and whatever else I can grab on the way to the liquor cabinet.

Sometimes the urge to eat inappropriately can be foxed by looking at cookbooks. I know this sounds paradoxical. Cookbooks don't make me hungry.

Rather, they stimulate me to high feats of technical daring using common kitchen implements and a mandoline, if only I owned one.

Computer books once had the same effect. I'd read about ways to tweak Windows, rush to my funky home office and attempt to move my Control Panel (who knew I'd ever HAVE a Control Panel?) to a permanent new position at the top of the screen.

That was so then. Cookbooks are so now. Reading about fried zucchini flowers is absolutely calorie free.

---

Whoever dreamed up the concept of "slow" food got it exactly right. Why hurry through a plate of store-bought scrambled eggs when you can go out into a Tuscan field, talk a couple of free range chickens into your arms, pluck them silly, and braise the heck out of them while watching the sun rise and set over Florence a couple of times?

How "free range" ARE chickens, anyway? There must be a fence, somewhere, or they'd wander off and join the wild turkeys.

The Chinese first invented Slow Food. Growing up in San Francisco, we fifth graders used to bully those third graders by telling them they'd have to eat a One Hundred Year-Old Egg from Chinatown.

---

Paula Wolfert wrote The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen to get Italian cooks to slow down, as if they were already going too fast, which I seriously doubt.

On the cover a ripe, open pomegranate spills a few seeds onto a gorgeous red plate. I guess the idea is to remove seeds from the pomegranate and add them to the ones already on the plate. This should take at least an hour, and by then it's too late to eat, anyway, so let's open up some Chianti and hoo boy! wouldn't an old cheese be good right about now?

If that isn't s-l-o-w enough for you, get your s-l-o-w cooker down from the top shelf. Take a look at prolific food author Catherine Atkinson's books: Slow Cooker Recipe Book and The Slow Cooker Cookbook, which between them contain more than 200 "no-fuss delicious one-pot recipes for relaxed preparation and tasty eating."

I bet her kitchen ALWAYS smells like chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Slow food, Reform Segment, is represented by Rachael Ray, a Food Network phenom. Ray pioneered the idea that simple folk can make simple food in 30 minutes. Or less.

Her small books Comfort Food, Guy Food, and Kid Food promise easy, 30-minute, meals.

Following Rachael's suggestion I will "Barbecue Saucy SALMON on Romaine Salad with Orange Vinaigrette." In 30 minutes I will assemble a "tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little for drizzling" by running off to the market. The market is a 20-minute round trip from here, and if I don't have to wait in the Express Lane I should be back with minutes left in which to finish this dish.

I also will need a red onion, red wine vinegar, maple syrup, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce (this famous ingredient, along with Liquid Smoke, appears in every Rachael Ray recipe*; they're great time-savers), curry powder, freshly ground black pepper, salmon fillets or salmon steaks (my choice), zest and juice of one small navel orange, garlic, Dijon mustard, fresh tarragon or dried, salt, more olive oil, romaine lettuce hearts (I didn't know lettuce had hearts), and three scallions, chopped.

This is classic Guy Food, and I'll tell you why. Most guys, if you could get them to read the recipe, are out the door and on the way to Bernillo's for a slice, extra cheese, don't hold the sauce.

And guys, you KNOW what I'm talking about. De-stressing.

Aired Sunday February 26, 2006 at 10:55 am and Monday February 27, 2006 at 8:40 am

Orders/Information:

Welcome to Your Crisis: How to Use the Power of Crisis to Create the Life You Wantby Laura Day. Little Brown hardcover $23.95. ISBN 0316114642

Ice cream (yum): http://www.benjerry.com/our_products/

The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen: Recipes for the Passionate Cook by Paula Wolfert. Wiley hardcover $34.95. Winner of the IACP Cookbook Award. ISBN 0471262889

The Slow Cooker Recipe Book by Catherine Atkinson. Southwater paperback $15.99. ISBN 1844762165

The Slow Cooker Cookbookby Catherine Atkinson. Little Brown hardcover $35.00. ISBN 0754814866

Comfort Food: Rachael Ray Top 30 30-Minute Meals by Rachael Ray. Lake Isle Press (National Book Network) hardcover with hidden lay-flat spiral $12.95. ISBN 189110523X

Kid Food by Rachael Ray. Lake Isle Press hardcover $12.95. ISBN 1891105221

Guy Food by Rachael Ray. Lake Isle Press hardcover $12.95. ISBN 1891105213

* OK, not EVERY Rachael Ray recipe.