BY SYBIL PRATT

At home in Rome

You might not catch a glimpse of St. Peter's splendor from your kitchen window or pick out your produce from the stalls in the bustling morning market in the Campo dei Fiori, but with the help of a dedicated aficionado of all things Roman, especially the food, you can cook and eat as though you lived just above the Spanish Steps, or down the street from the glistening Fontana di Trevi. That dedicated aficionado is Suzanne Dunaway, who has lived in the Italian capital off and on for 30 years, and is still "as smitten with Rome as any Italian teenager with his first amore." Her culinary love letter to the Eternal City takes the form of the charmingly illustrated (she's a talented artist, too) Rome, at Home: The Spirit of La Cucina Romana in Your Own Kitchen. The essence of this special spirit is simplicity, ease, the freshest ingredients and more time spent at the table than in the kitchen—all achievable and all desirable. As in a classic Roman meal, we start with an assortment of antipasti and work our way through the primi piatti—soups, pastas, (check out the authentic Fettucine all'Alfredo, couldn't be easier and couldn't be better), risottos and frittate, then on to the secondi—fish, poultry, meat and game. Veggies get their rightful recognition, as do bread, focaccia, pizza and the sweets that finish off a Roman repast. A Roman holiday without leaving home.

Rome, at Home: The Spirit of La Cucina Romana in Your Own Kitchen
By Suzanne Dunaway
Broadway, $29.95
304 pages, ISBN 0767913779