Cookbooks - Coochy coochy cucina

It’s tempting to breezily write off Giada de Laurentiis’ first cookbook, Everyday Italian (Clarkson Potter). The star of the same-titled cooking show has the typical sheen of a Food Network babe: She looks like she never eats the pastas she so nattily whips up. Pics that flaunt her huge starlet smile fill the book. She makes her cucina-fueled childhood sound like a cross between “Gidget” and “Moonstruck.”

And yet.

If weekday recipes are what you’re after, this is a strikingly appealing collection. De Laurentiis applies her Italian-American sensibility with a savvy dose of common sense. The ingredient lists for her dishes are blessedly short. She doesn’t shy away from convenient pre-made items, like store-bought pumpkin ravioli, though most of her instructions call for fresh, seasonal meats and vegetables prepared with seductive ease.

There’s a heavy emphasis on pasta in her book, so those still clinging to the low-carb diets should look elsewhere for culinary inspiration. I’m partial to one-dish soups for quickly prepared meals, so I wish de Laurentiis had provided more zuppe recipes. But she does offer smart suggestions for using leftovers, such as turning uneaten wild mushroom risotto into a golden brown cake sprinkled with parmesan.

Some of the language in the book is a bit cutesy, but if the recipes work, I’m willing to be told her recipe for fried calamari is “super-duper easy.” And let’s face it - Americans spend less and less time cooking their own food. If it takes a stunningly beautiful woman touting accessible variations of the country’s favorite ethnic cuisine to get us back in the kitchen, so be it.

Giada de Laurentiis will be signing books at Borders Buckhead on Tues., March 22, 7 p.m. 3637 Peachtree Road. 404-237-0707. www.borders.com.??