Bookshelf: Urban Italian ("He Cooks, She Composes")

Is this something new? A chef who cooks, a spouse who writes. ("He tastes, she types." Or should that be "He cooks, she composes"?)

Earlier this fall, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg came through town with their new jointly written tome, The Flavor Bible. In Seattle today (for KING TV's morning show, lunch at Sorrentino, book-signing and dinner at Tavolata) are Andrew Carmellini and his wife, Gwen Hyman. Carmellini (another chef whose opinions grace the Flavor Bible, by the way) won the James-Beard-winning "best New York chef" award after six years as chef de cuisine at Café Boulud and was until May an owner and chef at a Voce.

He and Hyman wrote Urban Italian while waiting for a Voce to open; now there's another new restaurant project in the works. Gwen, for her part, is a PhD food historian with her own, much more scholarly book, Gentlemanly Appetites. At any rate, their joint venture, Urban Italian is full of breezy narrative (sometimes even breathless) and about the Midwest boy from an Italian family finding his culinary roots in the hills of Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria, and Sicily. Recipes and useful culinary advice aimed at home cooks, not professionals: "Do not stress out. Cooking should be fun....Don't be afraid to taste, touch, smell, feel, and make a mess. That is how you make great food." Step-by-step illustrations for making gnocchi, too.

Bloomsbury, $35. Website: www.andrewcarmellini.com.