COOKBOOK WATCH

As its title implies, there’s less emphasis on chef cuisine in the new cookbook “California Home Cooking” (Harvard Common Press, $16.95) than in many other books devoted to the cooking of the Golden State. More in the tradition of Helen Evans Brown in the early ‘50s, author and California native Michele Anna Jordan looks at the foods and dishes that are part of the California lifestyle. Certainly restaurant cooking has an influence, but it’s largely ingredients--the abundance of West Coast produce--that provide the inspiration for recipes.