Vegetables--Good Eating and"Good for You" table cookery are stressed: choose fresh produce carefully; peel and cut only when necessary, and use a gentle hand; cook vegetables only until crisp-tender; do not overpower vegetables with other flavorings, especially sugar and salt; drain vegetables well after cooking; to preserve the best taste and texture, serve vegetables as soon as they are cooked. Hopping onto the vegetable bandwagon, agricultural producers are beginning to give more attention to "qual- ity factors" (that is, taste) in developing new hybrids. And supermarkets are stocking a wider variety of vegetables than they once did and are being more careful about how vegeta- bles are handled. All this activity surely indi- cates a new awareness on the part of cooks and diners of what fresh vegetables can--and should--taste like. It would almost seem that we are entering a golden age of American vegetable cookery. If we leave the matchless qualities and pleas-sures of fresh vegetables aside for a moment,frozen vegetables definitely come next in thetaste hierarchy. Their brighter-colored appear-ance and crisper, chewier texture, as well asfresher taste, are much superior to limp andpallid canned versions of the commonervegetables. They are especially satisfactorysubstitutes for fresh vegetables in soups andstews and in various other mixed dishes, if thepackage directions for their preparation arecarefully followed, either for simple serving asa side dish or for use as an ingredient in morecomplicated recipes. Vegetables are an important source of manynutritional elements required by the human