Only the fourth woman in history to be awarded three Michelin stars, Anne-Sophie Pic is routinely described as the best female chef in the world. That her culinary achievements are often qualified by gender might irk another chef, but the 44-year-old embraces the softer side of cooking. At La Dame de Pic, her year-old restaurant in Paris, the dishes are light and delicate, and each menu comes with a perfume strip to evoke the various flavors of the meal. In her new cookbook, ""Le Livre Blanc"" (her first in English, available Sept. 1), she features recipes like Normandy scallops topped with a ""sunset"" of rose petals and radicchio and crab topped with Chinese white-jasmine tea foam, which are accompanied by lovely, spare photographs. It's as much an art book as a practical guide; Pic explained that she doesn't expect home cooks to replicate her recipes - after all, who has gariguette strawberries in the fridge? ""But," she added, "I will be very happy if they were inspired by my associations of taste."" QBookshop, $60.