COOKBOOK WATCH

“I know!” begins a box in Paula Wolfert’s new cookbook “Mediterranean Grains and Greens” (HarperCollins, $27.50). “Just the thought of making your own couscous gives you a headache, but in fact it’s easier than making your own pasta or bread. . . .”

Wolfert knows that her recipes are considered difficult, and her strongest fans would be disappointed to detect such a defensive tone. They’ll roll their own couscous and grow their own Tuscan kale (cavalo nero) if that’s what it takes to make a Wolfert recipe.

But even those in the quick-and-easy crowd and their healthy-and-light friends will find themselves attracted to Wolfert’s sixth book. Grains and greens, after all, are what many say they want these days, and Wolfert’s recipes--among them handkerchief pasta with wilted greens and wild mushrooms; squab baked with green wheat, garlic and lemon; leafy greens scrambled with eggs on polenta; creamy rustic pasta and red lentil soup with mint and black pepper swirls--make you want to get in the kitchen as quickly as possible . . . so you can eat.

Olive oil, not the goose fat of her Southwestern French recipes, is her chosen fat in this book. And there’s even a recipe built for speed: one-minute harissa. This is Paula Wolfert at her most accessible, but the passion and obsession that pushed her into America’s cooking elite is firmly intact.