So what’s new with Emeril?

The pride of Fall River and Johnson & Wales University, Emeril Lagasse called in last week to catch us up on all that is new in his culinary world. The “Bam” man sure keeps busy with opening new restaurants and taping TV shows. But he will take time to return to New England for a cookbook signing at Dave’s Marketplace in East Greenwich Nov. 20 from 4-7 p.m.

Lagasse said he does so many book signings across the country, the local market asked if he couldn’t come here for one.

The new book is “Emeril 20-40-60: Fresh Food Fast” (HarperStudio, $24.99) and it comes out next week. It offers recipes that get meals on the table in 20, 40 or 60 minutes. The idea is to create fine food and to save money. He began it 14 to 15 months ago, just when the downturn in the economy was starting.

“You try to keep the ingredients pretty simple and work from the pantry,” he said. Running out to buy new specialty ingredients makes people less likely to cook a weeknight meal on the fly.

It was an easy cookbook to write because the recipes come right from his heart, Lagasse added. His favorite recipes in the book include Chicken Cordon Bleu, a dish he grew up eating as made by his Portuguese mother, Hilda. But he’s come up with a new version here. He also loves the broccoli cheese soup and the baked flounder.

“Any New Englander had to do that,” he said of the fish recipe.

He also chronicled the stages of recipes with color photos that fill the book. That is a new look for him in his cookbooks and he likes that idea and thinks it is helpful to those learning to cook. He’ll do more of that in his next cookbook, which he is already working on.

But that isn’t all he’s doing.

Lagasse, 50, just taped a segment with Ines DeCosta, proprietor and chef from one of his favorite Fall River restaurants, The St. John’s Athletic Club Restaurant, for the Food Network show “The Best Thing I Ever Ate!” She made her kale soup and the episode will be on in January.

“Of course there are a lot of great Portuguese restaurants there,” he added.

He is a correspondent for ABC’s “Good Morning America” and had just done a long segment that morning before we talked.

He just opened a new restaurant in Las Vegas, Lagasse’s Stadium, and he’s very excited about the soon-to-open Burger Bar at the Sands Casino Resort, in Bethlehem, Pa. It’s an upscale restaurant, though he hates that word, he says. There will be hamburgers, of course, but also fish, crab and shrimp burgers, along with homemade condiments, milkshakes, fries and more burgers of salmon and mushrooms. There will be eye-catching cocktails and microbrews, too. It’s not only a new design, but also a new concept for him with lots of local sourcing of ingredients from farms in the area, something he has been wanting to do for a while.

Lagasse owns a dozen restaurants but has no plans to open one in New England.

Half of his family is all grown up. Daughter Jessie and her husband live in New Orleans, and daughter Jillian lives in London, pursuing a career in theater and music. His younger children, with wife Alden, are son E.J., 6, and daughter Meril, who turns 5 soon. Lagasse commutes back and forth between New Orleans, where he has his home, and New York City, where he does much of his work and keeps an apartment.

gciampa@projo.com