Instructions: Nick Stellino knows that the real language of love is in sounds: the rustle of pasta being tossed in a bowl, the sizzle of garlic frying in a skillet and the slap of a well-browned pizza crust hitting the cutting board.

As the host of the cooking shows "Cucina Amore" and "Nick Stellinos Family Kitchen" on public television, Stellino acts out his love of Italian food for viewers.

He also demonstrates the pleasures of the table with his latest cookbook,

"Nick Stellinos Passione: Pasta, Pizza and Panini" (Putnam, $28.95).

Many of the recipes collected are the authors favorites, the kind of comfort food that he grew up with in Palermo, Sicily, and that were heartily welcomed in this country.

There are no revelations about Italian cooking here, either in recipes or instruction. Variations of these stuffed pastas, risottos, gnocchi, pizzas and the little sandwiches called "panini" are well-covered in the many Italian cookbooks that have preceded this one and that surely will follow.

But Stellino provides enough pleasant recipes and likable commentary to make the book enjoyable even for those people not familiar with his cooking shows.

This is a man who adores his family, immediate and extended, and it shows in stories about family trips around Italy, an impromptu dinner fashioned by his father from stale bread, and his mothers pride when Stellino was awarded a medal from the mayor of Palermo.

The past and present merge in the recipes. Those of Stellinos boyhood - sandwiches stuffed with chickpea fritters and pizza with caramelized onions - are mixed with his improvisations on chicken salad and such creations as tortellini with smoked salmon and creamed tomato-caper sauce.

Our experiments sampled both styles: a classic fried eggplant sandwich and a Stellino version of pasta with clam sauce that features shiitake mushrooms.

Both recipes called for tomato sauce, and it seemed worthwhile to make it from scratch, as the author suggests. The recipe included in the book, while serviceable, tasted slightly bitter. This could be the fault of the brand of canned tomatoes used or other factors, such as using dried instead of fresh basil (both are recommended), or simply the personal preference of some tasters for a sweeter sauce.

In any case, it seems that a favorite commercial tomato sauce will serve just as well.

What will require a little effort and mess are the yummy fried-eggplant sandwiches. Double-dipped in seasoned bread crumbs, flour and eggs, the crisp rounds of eggplant, topped with melted cheese and tomato sauce, make a terrific weekend meal.

The pasta with clams also pleased tasters with its tomato cream sauce, spiced with a sprinkling of red pepper flakes, as well as its crisp bits of bacon, chewy slices of shiitake mushrooms and the briny juice of fresh clams.

If your family isnt wild about shellfish in pasta, it would be easy to leave out the clams, substitute chicken broth for the clam juice and still have a flavorful, filling pasta dish.

Directions, even for the more difficult recipes for fresh pasta dough and gnocchi dumplings, are clear and easy to follow. Enlivening the pages are color photographs handsome enough to make even the sausage, pepper and onion sandwich look glamorous.

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