The last two especially show his comprehensive approach to distilling his enormous amount of professional expertise -- acquired as a chef in Paris and Greenwich Village -- into what will be useful to home cooks. Now he has set his sights both lower and higher, creating a picture book that aims to be a kitchen primer for the beginning cook. In fact Essentials of Cooking is of great interest to experienced cooks too, because Peterson has obsessively documented the preparation and cooking of vegetables, fruit, fish, poultry, and meat as no one has since Jacques Pepin published two large books on technique. Discuss this column in Post &