Let's hear it for the cicada. To the French it is the sound of Provence: once the temperature reaches 22 degrees Celsius the cigale begins to sing as the sun bears down and the heat rises, a fine reminder that summer is here and it is vacation time.

Take care not to confuse its love call with the song of the cricket, which crudely owes its singing career to parts of the body it rubs together. Our pal has a musical instrument like a pair of cymbals attached to each side of his abdomen to entertain us.

This entomological newsflash comes not in a tome about insect life but in a splendidly different cookbook that stands out among its peers for the snippets attached to the sides of its recipes.

Patricia Wells notes that the French have a system of kitchen organization called mise en place, meaning "everything at hand," and her arrangement of culinary treats interspersed with portions of local wisdom are good enough to eat. (Did you know the best melons have 10 ribs and should be enjoyed with a fork, never a spoon?)

These entertaining side dishes cover subjects as diverse as the mistral wind, mosquitoes, AOC wine appellations, pottery, the 4,500 species of cigale and the 25 varieties of potato to be found in Provence's farmers' markets, along with "everything from tractors to panty hose." For someone like me, who has difficulty distinguishing a madeleine from a mandolin (a slicing utensil favored by the author: I had to look it up), this is magical accompaniment.

Wells, the restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune, lives in the Provençal town of Vaison-la-Romaine, where she and her husband, Walter (the paper's executive editor), live in a farmhouse they have owned for 20 years. It has a small vineyard producing "a fruity young Côtes du Rhône" named after the property, Clos Chanteduc - the song of the owl - and a vegetable garden of prodigious stock. She admits to growing 20 varieties of tomatoes and eight varieties of basil plants (there are 400 in the world, she adds rather wistfully).

"The Provence Cookbook" comes alive when she introduces us, generously, to her sources: the suppliers and vendors, tradesmen and restaurateurs who share culinary secrets along with their bounty. We meet Franck the village butcher, Eliane the fishmonger, Raymond the vegetable man, Josiane the cheese supplier, Denis the baker and Hubert the honey seller and Hervé the truffle king.

The black and white photographs enhance this personal touch and there is even a list of contacts so readers can obtain ingredients directly. Unfortunately, quantities called for in some recipes can be confusing because there are no metric equivalents given with the recipes.

The names of places we visit with Wells ring with history and make our mouths water long before we get to the food: Vaison-la-Romaine, l'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Saint Rémy-de-Provence, Vacqueyras, Cavaillon, Gigondas, Nyons. All this is garniture for her plats principaux, the 175 original recipes she presents along with 12 menu ideas.

This insider's guide to Provence includes other delights such as "My Cheese Tray," which is spread over three pages with wine suggestions. The sacred subject of bread fills an entire chapter, where we learn about the tradition of bread sacks to keep it fresh. This hallowed approach certainly chimes with me.

There is a marvelous section on the science and art of food and wine pairing, where Wells tells us:

"I have had more food epiphanies over bread, cheese, and wine than over any other combination. As the late French baker Lionel Poilâne once pointed out to me, 'Bread, cheese and wine are all fermented foods. Bread is nothing more than flour and water and natural yeast. Cheese is nothing more than fermented milk. Wine is nothing more than fermented grapes. And each becomes what it is through the intervention of man.'"

Eh, voilà!

My wife is the cook in the family and I have never passed on a book to anyone with such eager anticipation as I have this well-presented, simple and easy to understand guide to local dining and Provençal life.

This is Patricia Wells's ninth book on the wonderful subject of food and it is a tour de force.

International Herald Tribune

Tony Rocca, an English journalist, is the author of "Catching Fireflies," about his experiences with a Tuscan vineyard.