European

To complete the menu, serve seeded Italian breadsticks and a salad of radicchio and marinated artichoke hearts tossed with balsamic vinaigrette. Spumoni ice cream is a perfect ending.

Here's a great prelude to a main-course pasta.

Here is one of the most popular ways for cooking shrimp in Italy and throughout the Mediterranean. In American-Italian cuisine, this recipe would be referred to as "Shrimp Scampi," a curious title since scampi means shrimp, which means the name, literally translated, is "Shrimp Shrimp." Good Italian or French bread should always be served with this dish for sopping up the good garlicky sauce.

(Green Salad with Roquefort Toasts) Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This bread and butter pudding gets its Italian flavor from panettone, a Milanese egg bread studded with raisins and candied fruit. Long a Christmastime specialty, panettone is becoming increasingly available throughout the year not only in Italy but also in the United States. Note: Panettone can be found in some Italian markets and specialty foods shops.

This combination of black and green olives, onion and garlic is a rendition of the relish served on the classic New Orleans sandwich called muffuletta from the Palladio restaurant in the Hyatt Regency in Rochester, New York.

A perennial favorite on both sides of the Atlantic, this raisiny bread makes fine, fragrant toast.

You can steam, grill, boil or broil the shrimp or, even easier, buy them already cooked. Saffron rice and greens mixed with some olives, red onion slices and a garlicky olive oil dressing are perfect side dishes. Sliced oranges sprinkled with a bit of sweet Sherry and paired with some crisp sugar cookies would round out the Spanish-inspired menu.

Broil or sauté an assortment of red, green and yellow bell pepper strips to serve alongside the chicken, and complete the main course with orzo pasta tossed with olive oil. Baklava from the bakery and strong coffee finish this Greek-themed meal.

(COMPOSTA DI CILIEGE E ALBICOCCHE) Delicious with the Rice Pudding Cake or with biscotti or vanilla ice cream.

At Woodside in West Los Angeles, owner Noel Ampel and executive chef Nigel Faulkner both believe in taking the freshest ingredients and combining them in simple, yet highly sophisticated ways. This pasta is a fine example of that philosophy. A basket of crusty warm rolls and a salad of mixed baby greens with a Sherry vinaigrette are great accompaniments. End with coffee gelato and chocolate-dipped biscotti. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Typical of hearty vegetable dishes of the Apulian region of Italy is this easy-to-make mixture of cabbage, onion and prosciutto.