The Shared Table: Cooking with Spirit for Family and Friends.(Brief Article)(Book Review)

THE SHARED TABLE: Cooking with Spirit for Family and Friends DON PINTABONA WITH JUDITH CHOATE. Random, $35 (368p) ISBN 0-375-50922-4

Pintabona, chef of New York's Tribeca Grill who famously fed hundreds of recovery workers after 9/11, shapes a diverse collection of recipes around the story of his life. Unfortunately, Pintabona's story--from his Italian-American childhood to his French and Japanese culinary training and his restaurant proprietorship--isn't as appealing as the food he celebrates. By clinging to the memoir structure, Pintabona forces readers to discover dishes according to his life's chronology, rather than in relation to ingredients, courses, …