A reader just wrote me with the best subject line in an email I've seen all year: "Duck legs."

She wants to make confit, and would like to know where to buy them. Seems she can find them during the holidays, but not after. Can anyone help her? I would love to know, too, because I love to roast 'em. She lives in Plano, but answers from anywhere in the area would be appreciated.

Staff file photo of duck legs confit at Toulouse

Let it be admitted: I am a sucker for bread crumbs. And they seem to be very much in the air these days. Or in the kitchen, anyway.

I've been cooking from Nancy Silverton's new Mozza Cookbook, and recently, when friends came for dinner, I made Silverton's Brussels sprouts with prosciutto bread crumbs. Everyone loved the dish, but I have to confess, I tweaked the recipe somewhat because it called for way more olive oil than it sounded like it needed -- more than a cup for cooking two pounds of Brussels sprouts, plus 1/4 cup in a vinaigrette that goes over them at the end and a couple tablespoons in the breadcrumbs.

Anyway, I'll tell you how to make the Brussels sprouts (which are definitely going into my repertoire) in short order, but first the prosciutto bread crumbs. Silverton's recipe made much more of them than was necessary for the B-sprouts recipe, and I've been using them on a million different things: topping deviled chicken legs with them before sending them into the oven, sprinkling on an Italian salad, tossing some into sauteed rapini. They are definitely a handy thing to have around, as they make everything delicious.

The Dallas Farmers Market Friends and American Institute of Wine and Food D-FW have rustled up another stellar lineup of chefs for its winter Farmers Market Chefs Cooking Classes, starting Jan. 21. To wit:

Jan. 21: Tiffany Derry, Private Social
Theme: Top Chef Cooking at the Market
Jan. 28 Salvatore Gisellu, Urban Crust
Theme: Sexy Soups
Feb. 4: Pete Harrison, Dakota's
Theme: Winter Cooking from Dakota's
Feb. 11: Abraham Salum, Komali & Salum
Theme: Authentic Mexican Cuisine
Feb 18: Kent Rathbun, Abacus, Jasper's, Blue Plate Kitchen
Theme: Kent's Winter Cooking

The details: Classes are held 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays in the Market Resource Center at the market. Classes are $25 advance, $30 at the door, with group and series discounts.

File 2011/Dallas Morning News
Tiffany Derry

If you're cooking dinner this holiday season, watch our how-to videos for some tips:

Video: Brining and roasting a turkey

Video: How to fry a turkey

Video: How to carve a turkey

Not into cooking?
Make reservations for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

It was a rough road - literally - for Chad Fitzgerald of Cedar Hill on Monday's episode of TLC's Cake Boss: The Next Great Baker. In that episode, Fitzgerald's challenge was to bake a life-size, full-body sculpture of one of Buddy the Cake Boss' sisters. "... toughest cake I've ever made in my life," Fitzgerald told neighborsgo's Jana J. Pruet. Although the cake won for looking most like the subject, his team lost when the cake was demolished from the waist down while it was in transit. Blasted potholes did in Fitzgerald's effort. Taping for the job is wrapped up and he can't disclose how he ended up. But he's staying busy after recently resigning as a Duncanville High School algebra teacher. He is co-owner of The Cake Guys in Duncanville and has opened a new location in Oak Lawn.

I know it's not Black Friday yet (and I usually loll about and snack on leftovers, rather than shop), but I can't help but think about holiday gifts. Here's one that landed in Food Editor Cathy Barber's mailbox (she was kind enough to pass it along to me): The Art of French Baking. With modest (yet useful) photos and charming illustrations, it's not a coffee table book, but it seems a great addition to the cookbook collection of anyone interested in baking eclairs, clafoutis, Saint-Honores, Paris-Brests and the like -- things you don't find in many American baking books. And macarons, 'natch. Author Ginette Mathiot's recipes are streamlined and approachable.

Hey, there's a pretty simple-looking one for a buche de noel! Maybe this will be the year I'll attempt one.

The Art of French Baking by Ginette Mathiot, Phaidon, $45

Something crazy happened this morning. I'd done my big Thanksgiving shopping yesterday, and forgot to buy a brining bag. No biggie, I thought -- I'll just swing by Kroger on the way to work. I salt my turkey, a technique also known as dry-brining, and need to start it tonight.

Not only did Kroger not have brining bags, no one I talked to there, including the manager, had ever heard of them, nor of brining a bird. I stopped at a Tom Thumb. Same story. What gives? Savvy cooks have been brining turkeys for a couple of decades, and five years ago, salting became the go-to technique. You don't need a bag for brining (or salting), but brining is a lot easier and less messy with a bag, and salting is much easier to control.

Great dried pasta is one of the most important ingredients in my pantry at home. We eat a lot of spaghetti -- usually Whole Foods' organic traditional bronze cut version, which a good deal for the quality at $1.99 per pound. For most of my life, penne was my favorite shape, but I hate penne rigate, which is usually what you find. I need the regular smooth penne, but not any old brand -- it needs to have great texture. My two favorites are Rustichella d'Abruzzo and Martelli, but they're both expensive, and I don't usually find them in my usual quick shopping rounds (I often find Rustichella at Central Market, but that's never quick!).

But a few days ago I was shopping at Target, and I found a pasta I loved: It's called trottole. It's like a big, thick, loopy super-fusilli -- or maybe a cross between fusilli and a shell -- and it's very good with Bolognese. (A spin through the web indicates that the one I got is bigger and more chunky than most.) Here it's pictured with one of my in-a-hurry-and-nothing-in-the-fridge standards: canned tuna, sliced red onion and celery, chopped parsley and canned cannelini beans, with a slick of good olive oil and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Anyway, the version Target sells -- under its Archer Farms label -- is also bronze-cut and organic, and it has that great, roughish texture. It's pleasing to the tooth, and really grabs the sauce. The price is $2.29 per pound.

Which raises the question: What's your favorite pasta shape and brand? And what's your favorite quick way to turn it into dinner? My other two quick faves are rapini and Italian sausage or garlic and olive oil, with lots of chopped parsley and freshly grated Parm.

Archer Farms Organic Trottole, $2.29 per pound at Target

If you love cookbooks but get frustrated with cheffy books whose recipes call for crazy ingredients and require days of preparation, you might just find a title in the current crop of cookbooks being published that speaks to you. Review copies of three exciting books just landed in my mailbox, each focuses on home cooking, but from very different angles.

My Family Table is by a chef -- John Besh (August, Lüke, etc.), but it's decidedly not cheffy. Its subtitle is "A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking," and the recipes reflect the way Besh likes to cook at home. The book is boldly organized, starting with a few very useful-looking master recipes ("Creamy Any Vegetable Soup," "Curried Anything," "Warm Any Fruit Crumble"). It then offers themed chapters ("Sunday Supper," "Dinner from a Cast-Iron Pot," "School Nights," "How to Cook a Fish," etc.). There's plenty of intriguing recipes within, like duck stewed with apples and turnips, a delicious-looking chicken fricassee, pickled shrimp (for a jazz brunch!), and a slow-roasted pork shoulder, which I'm going to try to make tonight because I happen to have on in my fridge (baseball food!).

Looking for a super-easy, inexpensive and wonderful autumn dessert to make? Consider the apple crisp.

During berry and peach season, I've long used the recipe for a crisp topping from Lindsey Shere's classic book Chez Panisse Desserts. She suggests changing the walnuts it calls for to almonds for a summery nectarine-raspberry crisp, which is wonderful, but I usually do it with Texas peaches, blackberries and raspberries.

Recently, I followed the recipe for the first time as it was originally intended -- as an apple crisp. Shere's crisp topping is absolutely perfect -- crisp, crunchy, lightly sweet and suitably rich. I did make one tweak, though -- I substituted pecans for walnuts to make it more Texan.

I think autumn has to be my favorite time of year. The weather today is one reason why. It's patio season again! Fall menus and brown drinks are two more. Fall is the time I start feeling like cooking again. Now that it's not 9,000 degrees outside, I can crank up the oven!

One of the best things about fall is fall cookbooks. Review copies of two compelling new ones just landed in my inbox.

The first is Andrew Carmellini's American Flavor. Carmellini is the chef-owner of Locanda Verde and the Dutch in New York City. I loved his cooking when he was chef de cuisine at Cafe Boulud a hundred years ago. His cookbook celebrates American cooking, and the recipes look great. He sets a salad of sugar snap peas and radishes with a minty-basilly dressing on a sauce made with sun-dried tomatoes -- how unusual. I'm always looking for recipes for pork butt, and his "slow-roasted pork butt," which gets a marinade of Dijon mustard, whiskey and fish sauce, plus a spice rub, looks worth a try. His chicken pot pie features a "ridiculously easy" cracker-like crust "so that when you break into the pot pie," he writes, "you get something a lot like crackers and soup." Mac 'n' cheese-stuffed meatloaf (!), roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon and cheddar, lamb chili with chickpeas and raita -- I can't wait to start cooking these. And root beer cake -- how good does that sound?

One of my quasi-relatives (it's complicated) who is gluten intolerant celebrated a birthday this past weekend and loves chocolate cake.

So I pressed Company Cafe (the staff had no idea who I was): Which of its four cakes that feature chocolate should I get for someone who "love-love-loves chocolate"?

The server made the recommendation without hesitation: the German chocolate. This, if you'll recall, is a chocolate cake made with German's, a kind of baking chocolate named after its creator, its layers separated by caramel-coconut-pecan frosting.

My quasi-relative was thrilled to enjoy a real cake - and so was everyone else at the table. There was simply no way to distinguish it from a regular cake. Fresh and moist, with a wonderful crumb and fabulous, from-scratch frosting, it was a showstopper.

I am so excited! Paula Wolfert, one of my all-time favorite cookbook authors, has just published an incredible book -- "The Food of Morocco." A review copy landed in my mailbox last night, and I spent a good part of the evening reading it, looking at the beautiful photographs, scanning the recipes.

The foods of Morocco, as Wolfert describes in her introduction, have been a passion of hers for 50 years, and the fruits of her half-century of travels and cooking this wonderful cuisine appear to pay off on every page.

I love to cook Moroccan dishes, and I've learned a lot from Wolfert's past writings on the subject. For instance, how to make preserved lemons, which I always keep in my fridge. And how to make light, fluffy couscous -- using instant couscous, but steaming it two or three times instead of just stirring boiling water in it. There's lots of incredibly useful new coucous information in her new book -- for instance which are the decent instant brands (that make fluffier, lighter couscous). Oh, and that the word coucous actually refers to the cooking technique -- various grains besides semolina are used in Morocco. And she includes a source for buying hand-rolled Moroccan couscous, which you prepare the same way (www.mustaphas.com). In this book, the recipes for the couscous stews are absolutely enticing -- one with lamb, pumpkin, carrots, chickpeas and raisins; another with seven vegetables in the Fes manner. Oh, which one to make first?

Several new cookbooks and memoirs with recipes, plus the reissue of Bill and Cheryl Jamison's Texas Home Cooking (Harvard Commons Press), make Texas hot for fall. And they take Texas tastes in every direction, from the Casserole Queens' "sophistakitsch" to a memoir about Molly Ivins and a Texas food blogger's first cookbook.

Corn, Roasted Red Pepper and Cheddar Quiche (pictured) comes from Kaleta Doolin's Fritos Pie: Stories, Recipes and More (Texas A&M Press). It's a modern Fritos recipe using the first modern American snack food in the crust. The book also includes early Fritos recipes, like one for deep-fried, Fritos-crusted bites of jellied cranberry sauce. Does that sound like fair food, or what?

Check out my story and get the Fritos quiche recipe here.

Evans Caglage/Staff Photographer

A review copy of a very cool cookbook just landed in my mailbox: Gretchen Holt-Witt's "Cookies for Kids' Cancer Best Bake Sale Cookbook."

I "knew" Holt-Witt (by email and phone) back when I worked at the L.A. Times and she worked for Oxo -- maker of many of my favorite kitchen utensils. (And, disclosure time: There was a very cute, bright green Oxo spatula also in the package with the book.) Anyway, in 2007 Holt-Witt's son Liam was diagnosed with pediatric cancer, a disease that is studied and funded much less than one would think. Holt-Witt tells all about it in her introduction. Rather than simply wish more could be done in terms of development of treatments for the disease, Holt-Witt organized a nationwide movement: Cookies for Kids' Cancer bake sales. People all over the country held bake sales and donated all the proceeds to kids' cancer research. And it's still going on -- lots of money has been raised.

Her new book collects the best recipes from the sales, and many of them look wonderful-- toasted coconut shortbread cookies, great-looking brown sugar cookies, "Prince Liam's peanut butter cookies," a bevy of brownies for every taste....

I know, I know -- who can imagine ever turning on the oven again? Well, we will -- before we know it, we'll be in the mood to bake. And I'll bet more than a few of us will even hold bake sales for kids' cancer. Wouldn't that be a great thing to do with your kids?

Cookies for Kids' Cancer Best Bake Sale Cookbook by Gretchen Holt-Witt, Wiley, $19.99

Have you heard about the new law that goes into effect Sept. 1 and allows home cooks to make and sell items in their home? A shout-out goes to EatGreenDFW.com and DallasVegan.com for spreading the word about texascottagefoodlaw.com, website that spells it out in easy-to-understand terms.

It includes a summary of the law, the full text of the law and FAQs, such as what you must include on a label.

Basically, it boils down to this: Sales must be made in your home (no festivals or farmers markets), you must gross less than $50,000 a year from sales, and the items you can sell are strictly limited to "non-potentially hazardous baked goods (cookies, cakes, breads, Danish, donuts, pastries, pies, and other items that are prepared by baking the item in an oven), canned jams, jellies, and dry herb mixes."

This covers face-to-face sales, so internet transactions are forbidden. But that doesn't mean you can't have a website or Facebook page.

As threatened, I just made the dandelion and radish salad I fell in love with at Prime Meats in New York City. But due to an unforeseen crazy Dallas experience, I forgot to include one of the ingredients! The salad I had in Brooklyn included dandelion greens, quartered radishes, anchovies, lemon, capers and parsley. I had all the ingredients ready, and turned on the tap to wash the parsley leaves. Warm water came out of the cold tap. I let it run -- and run -- until finally the water that came out was...lukewarm! This is not something I had previously experienced during my lifetime. I rinsed the parsley in lukewarm water and spun it dry, but I was so flummoxed that I forgot to include it in my salad.

It was pretty good anyway, though I'd make a minor tweak next time. I washed and tore into reasonable pieces half a bunch of dandelion greens (I'd been seeing them at Whole Foods, and was happy to finally have something to do with them!). Quartered about half a bunch of radishes, and tossed them in, along with about a teaspoon and a half of capers. At this point, the parsley leaves should have gone in, too. I made a dressing with four chopped anchovies, half a lemon and about a tablespoonful of olive oil. (No salt, because of the anchovies and capers, no pepper, because the greens are quite peppery.) I dressed and tossed. Pretty good, though maybe a wee bit too anchovy-ish. Next time I'd probably use three instead of four. Not everyone would like this salad, as it is rather assertive in flavor. But if you like a really Caesary Caesar, it might be for you -- and I'm guessing dandelion greens are off-the-charts healthy.

And yes, I'm on deadline, which is why I'm blogging about my salad.

When I wrote about Randall Copeland's menu for Cafe Momentum, I mentioned how blown away my table was over his Creamer Peas. I promised I'd get the Restaurant Ava co-chef-owner's recipe.

I'm going to run it in full on the jump, but here are the unexpected ingredients that probably contributed to its great flavor (besides bacon): butter to finish and fennel added to the mirepoix. This is a recipe anyone can make.

The phrase "cool as a cucumber" isn't just an alliterative turn of phrase. The interior of cucumbers on the vine is typically about 20 degrees cooler than the air.

I came up with a bunch of great recipes that take advantage of cool cucumbers, from Komali chef-owner Abraham Salum's Chilled Cucumber Soup with Tomato-Corn Relish (it gets a kick from chipotle) to sweet-and-salty Korean Quick-Pickled Cucumbers.

Check it out here.

Evans Caglage/Staff Photographer
Cucumber Honey-Mint Ice

I just got an email from Tim Love, chef-owner of Lonesome Dove Western Bistro and Love Shack, who sends along the blueprint for another refreshing soup. (I asked him if he'd care to post it in a comment, but he was on a plane traveling to London, having just departed the Aspen Food and Wine Classic, where he did a lunch with Mario Batali plus two sold-out grilling demos.)

"I recently did a fresh pea soup with fresh mint that was equally as refreshing," Love wrote. "Use fresh peas and frozen peas. Pass them through a juicer with a touch of fresh celery, shallot, aji Amarillo and mint. Finish with creme fraiche and mint. Delicious and super fast!" Sounds wonderful.

Photo by Robert W. Hart/Special Contributor

I'd always thought the world's most refreshing soup was gazpacho, but I may have changed my mind. Yesterday I made a yogurt-cucumber soup flecked with mint from the garden. I based the recipe on one in the "Soup" edition of the old Time-Life "The Good Cook" series, but tweaked it a bit. Super-easy, it's utterly refreshing, and in my house, anyway, a crowd-pleaser.

Pour a 32-ounce container of plain yogurt in a deep bowl and whisk it till it's very smooth. (I used non-fat, but I've also used low-fat). Peel, seed and roughly dice 2 1/2 cucumbers and add it to the bowl, along with 1 1/2 teaspoons white wine vinegar, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, 1 1/3 tablespoons olive oil and a handful of fresh mint leaves, chopped. Use an immersion (stick) blender to blend it into a frothy puree, adjust seasonings and serve. It can be made a day or even two in advance; serve chilled. (Of course you can make it in a regular blender or food processor too. I'm in love with my new immersion blender, though, and use it every chance I get.) It makes about 6 servings.

Besides being refreshing and satisfying, it's also low in calories: Made with non-fat yogurt, a generous (8-ounce-ish) bowl is about 127 calories. You can tweak it, adding some crushed garlic or substituting fresh dill for the mint -- or use both, or all three.

File/Staff Photo

Did you stay home on Sunday night and have dinner in front of the TV? I know I did -- I plopped some shrimp and burgers on the grill. The one family member not watching his weight had the burger, and the rest of us had shrimp, as pictured here. I picked a bunch of herbs from the garden -- thyme, marjoram, basil and rosemary -- chopped 'em up, added chopped garlic, olive oil, lime juice, salt and pepper and dropped in peeled shrimp -- beautiful, fresh shrimp from the Gulf. After a brief bath in the marinade, I skewered them and grilled them till just-done. With it, we had my favorite raw zucchini salad, recipe courtesy of the L.A. Times' Russ Parsons. Just halve and slice zucchini thin, put them in a colander, toss with a teaspoon or two of sea salt, and let them rest for half an hour. Then rinse well, pat dry and toss with lemon juice, a touch of good olive oil, fresh ground black pepper, a clove of crushed garlic, some torn basil (or mint) and top with toasted pine nuts. Letting the salted zucchini rest makes it kind of soft -- with a texture that's almost cooked, but still with that fresh, raw flavor. So good! With a glass of rose, it was a great dinner for watching and cheering the Mavs.

The thing is, I'm superstitious, so next season I'm going to have to eat this same dinner for every Mavs away game. What did you make? Please tell us your championship-winning menu!

We've already had our first hundred-degree-plus day of the year, but I'm still out in the backyard grilling in the evening -- an old-fashioned Weber kettle grill is my weapon of choice. I don't like to use lighter fluid -- too stinky, too dangerous, too environmentally unfriendly, and it doesn't help the flavor of the food at all. For years I used one of those cylindrical metal chimneys -- you fill the top with charcoal or briquets, crumple up a couple pieces of newspaper and shove them in a chamber underneath, set the contraption on the rack and light the newspaper. It works great (usually -- sometimes you have to re-light the newspaper), but it's messy. And I always hated the part where you pour the white-hot coals out of the chimney and little sparks fly everywhere.

But recently I picked up these Firelighters at Whole Foods. They're small cubes made from wood and vegetable oil. Mound your charcoals on the rack, set three or four Firelighters on them, and light each with a match. They're not explosive, they light easily, and they're totally hassle-free. I used them for the fourth time on Sunday -- shrimp and burgers on the grill for the Mavs game! -- and every time they've started a perfect fire that didn't need any special attention.

Firelighters, $5.99 per bag at Whole Foods at Forest and Preston; Plano (Park and Preston), Richardson (Coit and Belt Line) and Arlington (Lamar and Collins)

While you may love the look of 8-ball and 1-ball squash, have you ever wondered what, exactly, to do with it? Dallas Farmers Market farmer J.T. Lemley hands out a recipe sheet with stuffing ideas. I came up with this one (pictured left) on my own.

I prepared half a cup of quinoa according to package directions and combined it with a vegetarian sloppy Joe mix, prepared according to package directions. I hollowed out the squashes and reserved both the cap and the scrapings from inside.

Don't forget to preheat your oven to around 400 F. I microwaved the squashes on High (100 percent power) in a loosely covered glass dish with a tiny bit of water for 4 minutes, then stuffed each one with the sloppy Joe-quinoa mix, topped them with a bit of asiago cheese and baked them until they were hot and the cheese was melted.

It was terrific - now go to the jump to see what I did with the leftover squash

Have you seen the May issue of Bon Appetit? Newly redesigned under new editor in chief Adam Rapoport, it's absolutely appealing -- clean, modern, smart and funny, with a much more contemporary feel. This debut issue is all about Italy, and the food (and recipes) look great: a simple plate of roasted asparagus, a shaved asparagus salad with Parmigiano vinaigrette, a fantastic-looking bolognese recipe and one for a very simple silky pomodoro sauce. Oh, and lemon panna cotta with lemon marmalade. It is making me so very hungry.

If you've had a chance to check it out, what do you think?

Duo, the culinary concept space by Shinshei owners Tracy Rathbun and Lynae Fearing, offers a full slate of cooking classes through the end of April. Topics range from the regional cooking of Liguria, Italy, to Cajun cuisine. Classes are $45 to $65.

But from now till the end of the month, you can bring a friend for free. Call 214-884-2979 to sign up. The full schedule is on the jump.

This very cool space has an area that's perfect for classes. It's also a great set-up for entertaining if your house isn't big enough or you just want to avoid the fuss. And everywhere, every day, there are retail items for sale, from placemats to knives to furniture. A few doors from the restaurant, the facade at 7721 Inwood is not so inviting. Go in and check it out anyway.

Look closely at that photo, and it does look like spaghetti and meatballs. Only - it's not. It's a spaghetti-and-meatball cake created by Fort Worth baker Catherine Ruehle of Sublime Bakery, a four-time Food Network Challenge contestant.

It's featured in the March issue of Food Network Magazine (devoted to all things Italian), with great step-by-step photos of how to recreate it in your kitchen. The "meatballs" start out as chocolate cake. Yellow frosting is piped around them to resemble spaghetti, and homemade strawberry sauce and grated white chocolate make the illusion complete as "tomato" sauce and Parmesan.

Levi Brown/Food Network Magazine

A tweet from @davidlebovitz just lead me to a post on his blog that leads off with a great photo of Rio Star grapefruits at Central Market. The Paris-based author (and former Chez Panisse pastry chef) apparently was in Texas last month, and taught a class in celebration of Central Market's citrus festival. (He doesn't say which Central Market or where in Texas.) His thoughts on the grillions of varieties of citrus you can find in Dallas make for wonderful reading. And there's a bonus -- he provides links to great-sounding citrus recipes at the end. His recipes, by the way, are wonderful. If you try one, please let us know here in a comment.

UPDATE: @imccanntx (Ian McCann) tweets that "He was in Dallas, FW, Houston, Austin and I think San Antonio. He posted a bunch from the Lovers Lane CM." Thank you, Ian! Did anyone get to see him?

People tend to think of winter as the doldrums of produce. So I was happy to see, this morning, as I was madly trying to get out the door, a copy of the latest James Beard Foundation newsletter. In it, there was a little story about Daniel Humm, the executive chef at Eleven Madison Park Restaurant in New York, and his favorite winter ingredients. Meyer lemons, black truffles, celery root, tardivo trevisano and parsnips are what he chose. He likes Meyers, which he called "the best-tasting lemons in the world," in seafood dishes and desserts. Tardivo trevisano is an Italian green (actually a red and white "green") with a very short winter season. He likes it in a salad with sherry or apple cider vinegar. Parsnips he likes in soup. And celery root he called one of the most overlooked vegetables.

Naturally it got me thinking about my own favorites.

Despite all the hubbub, most of us will end up watching the Super Bowl game at home or with friends (or both). With that in mind, special contributor Tina Danze put together a killer collection (double-entendre intended) of Texas' favorite munchin' foods, from Velveeta-Ro-Tel queso to Frito pie.

Even I, who preach the merits of healthy eating, can't resist favorites like those (Frito Pie and Fletcher's corny dog: my go-to State Fair foods). Tina's also got the gooey-topped Texas sheet cake, tamales, and cream cheese and hot-pepper jelly. Are you salivating yet?

I would add these personal tweaks, though. While Milagro chips are terrific, I'm a new convert to Xochitl (so-cheel), which are soooo delicate and crispy, and made right here in Dallas. And although I've used Wick Fowler's 2-Alarm Chili Kit in the past, I've lately adopted Whitson's Moist Chile Seasoning, made in Terlingua (but I think it would be even better with browned, chunky meat).

What about you? Check out the story, then tell us about your personal tweaks and faves.

Evans Caglage/Staff Photo

That's my hybrid corruption of "hunkering down" and "bunker" because I feel like I'm hunkered down in a bunker. My windows are all frosted over with moisture so I can't even see out. And the few times I've stepped outside, I've hustled right back in. Darn, I'm glad I don't live in Minnesota.

Part of my bunkering down includes an improvised soup: I chopped up about a slice of bacon, browned some chopped onions in the fat, then added some vegetable stock and split green peas that had soaked overnight. Now I've got a steaming, aromatic pot o' soup I'm about to dig into. (I'd take a picture, but it's really ugly.) I think I'll add some lightly buttered corn tortillas, and voila! A warming, earthy meal for chilly, windy day.

What's anyone else making during this arctic blast?

Evans Caglage/Staff Photographer

Last night I made good on my threat to make saltimbocca, using Simon Hopkinson's recipe from "Roast Chicken and Other Stories." It's a good recipe, and a fine dish, quick, easy and delicious -- one that I'll make again soon. Its sageyness (sagacity?) was wonderful.

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I made a resolution this year to never put my knives in the dishwasher. I know, that's what I should have been doing all along. (In my defense, the dishes aren't my job.)

To start things off right, I decided to get my knives sharpened.

It's something I often put off, never wanting to leave my knives overnight (or longer) at a shop that offers sharpening services. I just don't like to be without them. I own a home sharpener - a really good one--but it takes time and doesn't sharpen as well as the pros.

So I was happy to find Jack Gresham, who operates Mobile Knife Sharpening at the Dallas Farmers Market. Depending on how busy it is, he can usually get a block of knives sharpened within a half hour. He even does serrated knives, and can also repair chipped or broken tips or bolsters.

It's 85 cents an inch, with a 5-inch minimum for regular knives, and $1.10 per inch for serrated knives, with a minimum of 6 inches.

Mobile Knife Sharpening operates out of Shed 2 (that's the indoor one) at the Dallas Farmers Market Thursday and Friday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and by appointment Monday-Wednesday.

Since I tasted the saltimobocca at Kenny's Italian Kitchen, I've been thinking how nice it would be to have a properly-made saltimbocca. I started pulling cookbooks off the shelf, looking for a good recipe. It's not in "How to Cook Everything." (Nothing I'm looking for ever is, which is is why I call it "How Not to Cook Anything." But I'm sure everything that did make it into that book is really good.) It's not in Marcella Hazan's "Marcella Says," though that book has a recipe for chicken breasts "saltimbocca style." Its headnote sheds some light on the Roman dish:

"Roman cooks, and what is more to the point, Roman diners," writes Hazan, "abhor bland food, particularly the kind that tries to pass as delicate. Forthright flavor is what grabs their palate, which explains how they came to devise a dish whose name -- saltimbocca -- means precisely 'jumps into the mouth.'" Pretty cool, no? Hazan reminds us that it's a dish of veal layered with pancetta and sage leaves and cooked in butter and Frascati (the local off-dry white wine). Curiously, she doesn't give a recipe for it in her "The Classic Italian Cookbook."

I did find an appealing recipe in Mario Batali's "Molto Italiano" that calls for prosciutto rather than pancetta. But I think I'll first try out the recipe I found in Simon Hopkinson's "Roast Chicken and Other Stories."

Over on Eating in Dallas, Margie has posted a really nice photo essay on making ricotta gnocchi. Rarely have I gotten so hungry looking at uncooked pasta! Check it.

In today's New York Times, John T. Edge has a done a fine job of explaining how a wood rasp wound up in the kitchens of foodies all across America. I was thoroughly enjoying reading it - the Grace family laughed when cooks started ordering Microplanes - when I came upon a quote from The Dallas Morning News.

I remember in the late '90s when we all enthused about the Microplane (there was only one then), and we must have been early adopters. I still have one of the frameless originals that I keep in its original plastic sleeve.

Writes Edge: "The press fueled the hype. In 1999, The Dallas Morning News promised, 'This grater turns Parmigiano-Reggiano into baby-fine clouds.'" I remember the line! But I don't remember who wrote it. Enjoy Edge's story here.

Author! Author!: It was Food and Features Editor Cathy Barber who penned that line. "Because Shirley Corriher took them on the Italy trip as her gift to the farmers and chefs we visited. That's the first time I saw one."

Hey, look -- here's the recipe for Michel Richard's take on Tater Tots that I mentioned here! Please, someone, make them, and let us know how they turn out. And I got my wish: here's the recipe for the pancetta-parsley salad mentioned by Monica Pope. It's from Dolce Vita in Houston. I just looked at the menu, and there's about 20 things I'd order -- or attempt to cook -- from it. Shaved Brussels sprouts with pecorino? I am so there.

Do you think the Brussels sprouts hold still while you shave them?

Follow Leslie: http://twitter.com/lesbren

Special Contributor Tina Danze dazzles in GuideDaily with cabbage three ways: a lively curried cabbage from an Arlington cook who's a native of Southern India; the World's Best Braised Green Cabbage, which turns sweet with long, slow cooking; and Whole-Wheat Penne With Red Cabbage, hearty enough to be an entree whether you're vegetarian or not.

Check 'em all out here.

Photo by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

If you're still dithering over your Christmas dinner menu, or just have a few holes to plug, check out Special Contributor Tina Danze's "No sweat Christmas feast" in GuideDaily. She called on the Green Room's chef Jeff Harloff to come up with a quick and delicious menu for the big day:

Roasted Red Pepper and Walnut Spread served with crackers and olives
Citrus Salad With Arugula (pictured)
Spiced Beef Tenderloin With Boursin-filled Portobellos
Browned Butter Whipped Potatoes With Blue Cheese
Swiss Chard with Cranberries
Dinner rolls served with Orange Butter
Spirited Layered Holiday Pound Cake

Yum, let's eat at Harloff's house. Check out the story and recipes here.

Photo by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

Want to pump up the flavor of your holiday rib roast or beef tenderloin?

Try dry-aging it.

I got the idea from a cookbook from the folks at Cook's Illustrated a couple years ago when researching how to make my first rib roast and the results were incredible.

This year, we decided to try it with a whole beef tenderloin.

I was happy to find Pegasus Foods' "Fine and Silky" style phllyo (also fillo or filo) dough at Central Market this past week.

I grew up making baklawa (you may recognize it as baklava) each year at Christmas time along with other holiday treats and it was always with a sense of dread that we'd unfurl the package of papery-thin dough to see what we were dealing with.

Too often, the delicate sheets would split, making the particular style of the Middle Eastern pastry my grandmother taught us impossible, or resulting in several pieces that broke apart and couldn't be served to company.

But not so with Pegasus' version, which separated easily and had very little tearing. My husband and I whipped through our annual production, making 120 pieces in under 90 minutes. (Including clean-up time!)

Pegasus also makes a "Country" style that is well suited for heavier applications, such as meat pockets or spinach-cheese spanikopita.

Homemade gifts from the kitchen aren't as common as they once were, and that makes them more desirable than ever, writes special contributor Tina Danze in today's GuideDaily section.

Check out the recipes and ideas she's gathered from area foodies that yield great gifts, especially when packaged with pananche.

Some examples include Chocolate-Almond-Coffee Biscotti packaged in Illy tins, homemade curry powder, a trio of gourmet salts and pecan caramel candies.

Photo of Coconut Granola Crunch by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

Mary Mathias' Hark the Herald Angel looks pretty feminine to me. 'Guess it's about time the Cookie Man opened his ranks to cookie women. Today's section of GuideDaily features all the winners in the Dallas Morning News-Central Market Holiday Cookie Contest, topped by the cookie angel, who becomes next year's Cookie Man. (Oops, there I go again.)

"This will go down as the year of the salty cookie," writes special contributor Valerie Jarvis. "Two of the five first-place cookies...featured the dynamic duo of salt and caramel." One is Stephanie Hollowell's Salty Caramel Crunch Bars (in the bar category), and one was Carol Adamek's Chocolate-Caramel Cookie Bars (in the decadent category). Get a look at all of the wonderful cookies and recipes, 15 in all, here.

Photo by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

In today's GuideLive cover story, three chefs - the Fairmont Hotel's Andre Natera, Fearing's Dean Fearing and Nova's Kelly Hightower - tell how they put together a savory party platter when guests drop by at the last minute. And Milestone Culinary Arts Center executive director Sharon Van Meter has a plan for homemade hot chocolate and a simple, quick dessert buffet.

The story's full of tips, from how to arrange an appetizer tray (Perfect Platter 101) to shopping smart. One of the wines chef Natera recommends is a Kiona Lemberger from Washington state. Lemberger? It's a grape with an unfortunate name (and no relation to the smelly cheese). But what a beauty of a wine: medium-bodied, with tons of blackberries and black pepper plus a cascade of Indian spices. Yummy with charcuterie? You bet.

Chef Natera's charcuterie platter, Kiona Lemberger on the left, by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

Tune in to 90.1 FM (KERA) from 10 a.m. to noon on Thanksgiving Day while you prepare the feast. You'll be entertained and educated (with hands-free radio) by Lynne Rossetto Kasper on "Turkey Confidential" from American Public Media's The Splendid Table.

This is the sixth year for the show, where you can call in for last -minute, turkey day advice. And Lynne has an all-star lineup of guests: chef and food advocate Jamie Oliver, culinary innovator Jose Andres and wine author Joshua Wesson, plus regulars Jan and Michael Stern, who crisscross America looking for great little restaurants.

Call in on 1-800-537-5252, or follow along online at www.splendidtable.org.

In today's GuideLive section, special contributor Tina Danze gets make-ahead dish ideas from four ace area caterers.

The dishes include: the Food Company's Oyster Dressing, Beyond the Box's Vanilla Sweet Potatoes, Pecan Lodge Catering's Collard Greens Gratin and Bravo's Grilled Asparagus with Bacon-Mustard Vinaigrette (pictured).

Check out the recipes, plus tips for do-ahead dishes, here.

Photo by EVANS CAGLANGE/Staff Photographer

Well, I couldn't get to the store to buy rum, but last night after I got home from dinner, I made the apple cake I haven't been able to get out of my head since I read about it yesterday. In Dorie Greenspan's book, it's actually called Marie-Hélène's apple cake. I thought I'd substitute Scotch for the rum (doesn't that sound good?), and wound up using a Japanese single-malt whiskey: The Yamazaki 12 year old. (It was only three tablespoons. Don't tell my husband.) Anyway, the Scotchy flavor with the apples was fantastic.

It's a joy of a cake to make: Everything comes together easily and quickly -- I think it was about 15 minutes before it was in the oven. The result was wonderful: I had a (tiny) slice for breakfast. Excellent with coffee. It would actually be a really good alternative to apple pie on Thanksgiving.

A couple notes: I used the mix of apples I had on hand -- a Granny Smith, two Golden Delicious and a beautiful, random blackish red heirloom from Washington state whose name I forget. Also, Lebovitz says to use an 8- or 9-inch springform pan, but Dorie says 8-inch, which is what I used. I would worry that you might not have the loft you want if you use a 9-inch pan, but pastry chef Lebovitz no doubt knows better than I.

I wanted to make an apple cake on Sunday, but couldn't think of one. I made an apple tart instead, which was good, but a wee bit too austere for my mood.

Then last night, I found this post on David Lebovitz's excellent website. David, it seems, fell in love with a French apple cake recipe in Dorie Greenspan's wonderful recent book, Around My French Table. I'm linking to Lebovitz's post instead of just offering Dorie's recipe because the post is so beautifully written -- and photographed. See what you think. Maybe you'll make that cake. I just have to run out and buy some rum, and then I'm hitting the kitchen.

This Thanksgiving Turkey Cake by Amy Wisniewski on chow.com is, in her words, "not recommended for people who require an inch of space between food groups."

It's made of seasoned ground turkey, sage dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping (look closely at the top of the cake) and gravy, for serving. If you must have the recipe and make it yourself, a photo step-by-step is at chow.com. What an amazing feat of imagination and culinary skill. Anyone going to try it?

Leslie Brenner and John T. Edge just reminded us a few blog posts earlier that Greenberg Smoked Turkey is a Texas treasure.

Now, what are you going to serve with your smoked turkey (or any other turkey) on Thanksgiving?

I've got a few ideas that you'll find in today's GuideDaily section. Most of the traditional Southern dishes get a little tweak to surprise guests - in a good way. Check it out here.

Clockwise from top: Almond-coated Green Beans, homemade Thousand Island Dressing with lettuce and cherry tomatoes, turkey, Thanksgiving Dressing with Buttermilk Cornbread. Photo by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

A recent episode of the Food Network's new "Meat and Potatoes" show had the host visiting The Meatball Shop in New York City. One of the featured meatballs was (no kidding) "billy balls," a mix of ground goat, goat cheese and some other ingredients. They looked wonderful. And while the show didn't offer anything like a recipe, there were enough details that I figured I could try making 'em. It was mostly a basic meatball recipe -- meat, bread crumbs, eggs, spices. The soft goat cheese was added because "goat meat is lean and tends to be dry, so by adding the goat cheese, you enhance the flavor and add a moistness that balances the meat out."

I found ground goat already pre-packed at IndoPak Market in Richardson -- right next to the plastic-wrapped whole goat heads (yes, with the eyes).

If you want goat by the haunch or even by the whole critter, this is also a place to go. The butchers there kindly ground some lamb for me so I could do a comparison. The soft goat cheese I got at Central Market-- cheapest brand I could find.

More details at the jump, but here's my metaquery: How many others out there have been inspired by a cooking show to try re-creating a dish at home?

All this month, the Wednesday GuideDaily section nails down some aspect of Thanksgiving, helping you prepare for the big day. As it happens, five new Southern cookbooks have come out recently, so we choose to take our Thanksgiving menu from them, starting this week with desserts.

When we shot the photos for the desserts article, the staff favorite was the super-easy Vanilla Wafer Cake (pictured) from Southern Plate by food blogger Christy Jordan. Check out the books and the desserts here.

Coming:
Nov. 10: A Southern Thanksgiving
Nov. 17: Make-ahead sides
Nov. 24: The wine panel chooses dessert wines for pie

Photo of Vanilla Wafer Cake by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

Conde Nast has announced that Adam Rapoport will be the new editor-in-chief of Bon Appetit. Rapoport, who will be leaving his position as Style Editor at GQ, where he also wrote about dining, replaces Barbara Fairchild, Bon Appetit's long-time Los Angeles-based top editor. Conde Nast is relocating the editorial headquarters from L.A. to New York.

Prior to joining Conde Nast, Rapoport edited the restaurant section of Time Out New York and worked as an editor and writer for the James Beard Foundation's Publications Office.

Meanwhile, Barbara Fairchild will be in the Dallas area on Sunday (Nov. 7) promoting her new book Bon Appetit Desserts: The Cookbook for All Things Sweet and Wonderful with an event at Four Seasons Resort and Club at Las Colinas. She'll be signing books at a tea, where the Four Seasons staff will prepare desserts from the book, including lemon-poppy seed scones with Devonshire cream and prickly pear jelly; ginger-pear crumb tart, mini chocolate-pecan tarts and more, as well as several savory canapes. The tea starts at 11:30 a.m.; tickets are $60 per person. Purchase them through Texas Toast Culinary Tours. Books will be available for purchase at the event.

It feels like a quinoa kind of day, doesn't it? Well, it does if you saw Kim Pierce's excellent story this morning about the not-grain. Check it.

Photo of quinoa with sweet corn and green chile by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

I love working at home once or twice a week because I can take a break and make lunch. Today, the cupboard was pretty bare, but I found two zucchinis and a lemon. I sliced the zucchinis, sauteed them olive oil in a pretty hot pan, letting them brown a bit, and adding some freshly-snipped thyme from the garden, along with salt and pepper. When they were browned all over, I put them in a bowl, leaving the olive oil in the pan, and tossed in about two-thirds of a big lemon, sliced thin, peel and all. I sauteed the lemon slices till they were nicely caramelized, then squeezed in the juice of the rest of the lemon, and poured that all into the zucchini. A quick stir, adjustment of salt and pepper, and there was my extremely satisfying lunch.

Try it...then tell us whether you like it!

I'd posted a couple of days ago that the LA Times offered an interesting suggestion about what to do with all the 99-cent gallons of milk suddenly available: A really simple do-it-yourself ricotta cheese. Needless to say, I could not resist trying the recipe. I made only one small change from the published version: I added a small squeeze of fresh lemon juice because, well, why not?

As you can see from the photo, the recipe worked as advertised. Almost. Head for the jump for my mystery and my follow-up experiment.

A copy of Yoshihiro Murata's new book, Japanese Home Cooking with Master Chef Murata, just landed in my mailbox, and it looks like a keeper. Murata is a superstar chef in Japan, and author of one of the most gorgeous cookbooks ever -- Kaiseki. Published in 2006, that book was filled with beautifully photographed, incredibly intimidating recipes for Murata's kaiseki dishes. Kaiseki is the elaborate, multi-course Japanese version of the tasting menu, and Murata's restaurant, Kikunoi, is a 98-year-old restaurant in Kyoto that's famous for it. More on Kikunoi and kaiseki shortly.

This new book is so exciting because it's as approachable as his last book was intimidating (it makes a great coffee table book, though). Here Murata's recipes are incredibly simple, and many of them look terrific. I'll be making his sake-steamed clams very soon, and there's a recipe for a daikon salad that looks great. But for the purposes of the last installment of Eat Your Vegetables, his recipe for steamed vegetables with peanut butter dressing seems perfect.

Flipping hungrily through Dorie Greenspan's great-looking brand-new cookbook, Around my French Table, I quickly landed on a recipe I couldn't resist: endives, apples and grapes. Dorie (and I call her Dorie because I've known her a million years) credits Michelin three-star chef Alain Passard with the recipe, which is much more gorgeously photographed in her book than I've done here.

Anway, I love endives, and eat them raw in salads all the time, but cooked they completely change character, so I'm always looking for good endive recipes. I wound up adapting the recipe because Dorie's called for only two endives, and I thought as long as I was going through the trouble, I'd double the amount, though I didn't increase the apples or grapes. The result was pretty spectacular. Thank, you, Dorie! Here's what I did:

You have surely noted the milk price wars roaring through North Texas these days, prompted by Aldi's 99-cent gallon throwdown price for cowjuice. We even did an interactive map showing milk prices.

Now some of you probably have no problem coming up with ways to use a gallon of milk before it goes bad. Others of us sometimes toss out the bottom inch on a quart, so a gallon seems like no bargain. But what if there were some really cool foodie thing to do with that gallon of milk? Like make ricotta cheese?

Enter Russ Parsons of the LA Times, whose description of how to make a (slightly faux) ricotta sounds not much harder than boiling eggs. Milk. Buttermilk. Plain ol' white vinegar. Pinch salt. A pot. A strainer. Read it here.

Of course, then I'll need to figure out how to use a pound of ricotta before it goes bad. And I'll still have too much milk left in the jug...

Not everyone loves cauliflower as much as I do, but even the cauliflower-averse love a velvety cauliflower velouté soup. At least that's how it goes in my family. I've long made it a really simply way, just bringing a quart of good-quality store-bought chicken stock to a simmer, adding a raw cauliflower, simmering till tender, then pureeing it all together. That's very good. But I just tried roasting the cauliflower first, and the resulting soup has an even deeper, more wonderful flavor.

It's getting a bit late in the tomato season, but a few days ago I spotted these locally-grown Early Girl tomatoes at the Whole Foods on Preston and Forest, and snagged a bunch. They're expensive ($5.99 per pound), but fantastic -- extremely sweet and bursting with juice. The sign said they were from "Dry Farms," which was confirmed by a produce department staffer when I called. But I can't find any reference for Dry Farms online, and it seems like such an odd name, I'm wondering if maybe they're simply dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes. Their flavor was so intense, they could well have been dry-farmed.

Did you happen to see Kim Severson's New York Times story about how America won't eat its vegetables? This is despite the rise of the farmers market movement and the ever-growing availability of pre-cut vegetables and salads in bags in supermarkets.

It depressed me. The federal government recommends that people eat at least 4 1/2 cups of fruit and vegetables every day, but only 26 percent eat vegetables three times a day or more (I think that means 3 half-cup servings or more). People's main excuse is that they're too busy to make vegetables, or that they don't know how to prepare them. If you spend ten minutes less a day on Facebook, you can make something wonderful to bring to the office (or eat at home) for lunch.

So every day this week I'm going to offer up an easy idea for a great vegetable dish. Today's is a surprisingly wonderful kale, pine nut and currant salad. More on that after the jump. But we'd also love to hear your creative, delicious ways of serving vegetables. Please email me at lbrenner@dallasnews.com with a description of your favorite vegetable dish, along with a photo, and I'll post as many as I can. (I won't post copyrighted recipes, you if you can "talk" through the recipe as I've done here, that's fantastic.)

Several past State Fair winners share their secrets with Valerie Jarvie in GuideDaily. Even if you don't plan on baking for a contest, there are plenty of good tips on how to make the perfect pie or cake.

One of the tips is to use Regency brand rubber rings ("evendough bands") on your rolling pin. They come in graduated sizes to control the thickness of your pie crust. Check out all the good ideas here.

Photo by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

Publishing giant Conde Nast, which shuttered Gourmet magazine almost a year ago, is moving Bon Appetit from its California digs to New York, the better to consolidate operations.

Longtime editor-in-chief Barbara Fairchild won't be making the move. The Associated Press reports that she was unwilling to relocate to New York. She will, however, help with the transition.

(Aside: Fairchild is coming to the Four Seasons Resort and Club in Las Colinas Nov. 7 to promote Bon Appetit Desserts: The Cookbook for All Things Sweet and Wonderful (Andrews McMeel, $40).

There was immediate speculation that former Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl might be considered for the top post, but Conde Nast isn't talking.

See the jump for the complete AP story and details on Fairchild's North Texas visit.

White Rock Local Market has put together a Texas-themed brunch menu using items from many of its vendors. What a clever idea. Here's the menu:

Farmer's Market Spicy Quiche
Malabar Spinach and Mushroom Salad
Sweet Bread Platter with Market Preserves and Honey
Seasonal Melon with Mint and Zip Code Honey

Serve with: Fresh Brewed Coffee from Oak Cliff Coffee Roasters

The recipes are on the jump.

With their swagger and braggadocio, Texans are so proud of exporting foods like nachos, Frito pie, chili and barbecue to the rest of the world. So it's great fun when the tables are turned, and Texans fall, this time for New England's whoopie pie.

And why not? It's at least a kissing cousin to the moon pie. But boy, have Dallas bakers put their own spin on the two-fisted treat. Check out my story here and see who's making whoopie (pies) in in Dallas.

Photo by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer/Clockwise from bottom, Carrot with Caramel Creme, Red Velvet with Vanilla Cream Cheese Icing, Strawberry with Strawberry Creme, Chocolate With Vanilla Creme, Pumpkin with Cinnamon Creme, Chocolate with Peanut Butter Creme, S'more, and Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce Filling.

TJ's Fresh Seafood will drag its grill and fresh fish over to Natural Grocers for a free sidewalk seafood cooking demo to celebrate Natural Grocers' first weekend. TJ's will work in Natural Grocers' oils, herbs, marinades, produce and more.

'Sounds like a great pairing, plus it gives TJ's so much more room than the sidewalk in front of the seafood store. It's at 12:30 p.m. Saturday. Natural Grocers is in the old Whole Foods location at Preston-Forest (southwest corner).

Sherri Lee is an ex-pat Dallasite and Texas Christian University alum who lives in Knoxville, Tenn. The retired schoolteacher flips for figs and self-published her own cookbook called Under the Fig Leaf (The Cookbook Marketplace, $27.95), which is available on Amazon.

If you're also crazy for figs (fresh and dried), Lee has some good-sounding recipes, among them Fig Cornbread Dressing, Sugar Bacon-Wrapped Figs over Greens, Braised Chicken with Figs and Texas Fig and Pecan Tart. The latter two are by chef Joseph Lowery, a consulting chef in the Knoxville area, who helped test many of Lee's recipes alongside Linda Ullian Schmid. She developed and tested recipes and styled for Southern Living magazine for 25 years.

It all adds up to a sweet book of winning ways with figs. I've included her Breadsticks Wrapped with Fig Spread & Prosciutto on the jump to whet your appetite for the holiday season.

In the wake of the salmonella outbreak in which a gazillion eggs have been recalled, the federal government has put together an excellent, informative web page about egg safety. There's also a page that tells you how to tell whether the eggs in your fridge are involved in the recall, along with a list of affected brand names.

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

I love basil -- and so does my friend Jeremy Parzen, who has a really interesting post about it on his wonderful blog, Do Bianchi. (Caution: It's a little gruesome if you read all the way through!)

Jeremy mentions the Genoese Pesto Consortium's officially sanctioned pesto recipe. Mine, a "fake" one similar to Jeremy's, is very simple: a bunch of basil leaves, a clove or two of garlic, salt to taste, a couple tablespoons of pine nuts and a quarter cup or third cup of olive oil -- whirr that up in a food processor or blender till smooth. Put it in the pasta bowl. Stir in freshly grated Parmigiana-Reggiano. Cook the pasta (I like the long corkscrewy fusilli or trenne made by Rustichella d'Abruzzo best, but had a very satisfying one last night with Whole Foods organic spaghetti), and when it's almost done, add a big spoonful of the cooking water to loosen up the sauce. Drain pasta and toss with the pesto. Precede with sliced ripe tomatoes dressed with flaky sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, your best olive oil and some torn basil leaves, if you want the basil double-whammy.

I heard a story on NPR early in the summer about a basil blight sweeping the country, so I worried that basil would become unavailable or crazy-expensive. The basil in pots in my garden wasn't affected, happily. Is your basil OK? Do you love it as much as I do?

Shinsei's sweet-and-savory honey-hoisin ribs are the inspiration for a grill menu that looks east in Emily Wise Miller's GuideDaily story marrying fire and spice.

Sake-ginger grilled shrimp, Asian slaw and grilled pineapple round out the menu. Check it out here.

Photo by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

It's August, and the summer heat is oppressive and relentless. Can we ditch the cicadas and move on to fall now? The short answer is no, but we can at least make the best of sizzling days with chill ideas for food and drink. They're in my GuideDaily story story today.

Personally, I love Bliss Raw Food & Elixir Bar's Pineapple Cucumber Gazpacho. Cool, tart and mildly sweet with a faint chile kick. Kaurina's kulfi bars are good, too, and different: The ice cream has a pleasing, grainy texture. And now, for the first time in Dallas, you can sign up for an ice sculpture class at Chef Pete Catering Kitchen and Ice Carving Studio. Check it all out here.

Left to right: Bliss' Pineapple Cucumber Gazpacho, Grape Ranch Frozen Rose and Leah's Peachy Keen Smoothie. Photo by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

Wow. Jason Clark over on Central Market's Facebook Page is letting Texans have it. Stay away from his beloved Hatch chiles, he says. And some Texans are bummed that Hatch chiles were so wimped-out (no fire) last year. It's all in good fun. And it reminds us: The chiles are coming. The chiles are coming.

Tip: You have to click on "Go to Facebook.com" to complete the link.

The sleek and sexy Mercantile Coffee House is now open on the ground floor of the Mercantile apartment building downtown.

I popped in briefly on a scorching afternoon and had a cup of fat-free, sugar-free Yogen Früz with raspberries. Turns out, the fat and sugar are in there for a reason. I'll try another variation next time.

Have you been? Pop me a note and tell me what you thought.

Mercantile Coffee House, Suite 1000, 1800 Main St., www.mercantilecoffeehousedallas.com

Photo by cwynn

The women of the Northwood Hills subdivision decided long ago that it was important to get to know each other, writes Valerie Jarvie, who's part of the Far North Dallas neighborhood. And so for more than 30 years, the women have gotten together for the 4th Wednesday Lunch Group, with no agenda beyond getting to know one another.

In today's GuideDaily story, they share some of their favorite recipes, many of which sound like they came from a Junior League cookbook. But don't they sound good? Chutney Chicken Salad, Chicken Spectacular (made with cream of celery soup and Uncle Ben's Wild & White Rice, Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars, Millionaire Brownies and Bow-Tie Pasta Salad with toasted pine nuts three colors of bell peppers.

Check out the story and recipes here.

Photo of Mary Beth Fikse by LOUIS DELUCA/Staff Photographer

Up until I opened my package from the National Mango Board yesterday, my favorite mangoes were Atalfos. They're smaller and yellow, with very creamy (some would say slimy) flesh and a bit of a citrus kick.

But now I've got a new favorite mango: the Kent. This looks like the typical red-green-yellow family of mangoes, but it's slightly squattier and more compact. I have seen it at some area markets recently.

What makes it so good? Keep reading.

My Fit Foods, based in Houston, isn't new, but I got my first good look recently, and I liked what I saw.

The food tastes good, and the commitment to healthier eating extends to details such as the pasta. It's made with brown rice, but is indistinguishable from regular pasta.

That's part of the emphasis on low-glycemic-index foods. The lower the score, the less effect a particular food has on blood sugar and insulin levels, according to the website of the Glycemic Index and GI database. My Fit Foods also uses fresh fruits and vegetables and lean protein. It's all packaged fresh, and you simply heat, plus it comes in several portion sizes.

But flavor is where the rubber meets the road. (It's a good thing because some of these dishes are not so pretty.)

Update: CONFIRMED. My Fit Foods will open a location at Preston and Royal, probably in a month or so.
Photos courtesy of My Fit Foods

For those of you who can't wait for the Garland outpost of In-N-Out Burger to open (or don't care to drive so far for a burger) but still lust for a Double-Double Animal Style, Jason Kottke over on kottke.org has a nifty little entry about how J. Kenji Lopez-Alt discerned the make-up of In-N-Out's special sauce.

When you click forward to "Here's the recipe," it takes you to seriouseats.com, where you not only find Alt's recipe, but a drooler photo of a burger. Or maybe I'm just jonesing for lunch.

Click backwards to Alt's entry for his quest to get an In-N-Out Burger to his New York doorstep.

Photo from seriouseats.com by Kenji Alt

Have you ever gone to the farmers market and gotten a wonderful array of goods, only to get home and wonder "now what?" Special contributor Tina Danze took on the challenge of going all-local for three weekends (Thursday through Sunday) to see what was possible, and she came up with some tasty Texas dishes.

Most of her recipes are simple, because local, fresh ingredients taste so good. Watermelon Salad with Blueberries, Mint and Feta (pictured) is one her creations. Check out the whole story here.

Photo by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

Two foods central to enjoying Tex-Mex are salsa and guacamole, yes? In that light, let's take heed to a report issued today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Nearly 1 out of every 25 restaurant-associated foodborne outbreaks with identified food sources between 1998 and 2008 can be traced back to contaminated salsa or guacamole, more than double the rate during the previous decade, according to research released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases.

"Fresh salsa and guacamole, especially those served in retail food establishments, may be important vehicles of foodborne infection," says Magdalena Kendall, an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) researcher who collaborated on the CDC study. "Salsa and guacamole often contain diced raw produce including hot peppers, tomatoes and cilantro, each of which has been implicated in past outbreaks."

A bit more detail at the jump.

The registered dietitians at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas share their favorite summer recipes in today's GuideLive section.

As food editor Cathy Barber writes, "The list looks like what you'd find at any picnic: a crunchy, colorful slaw; a blackberry dessert, grilled chicken, lots of salads.

"So what makes them good for you? In some cases, it's simple ingredient substitutions. ... The other difference that jumps out is portion size." Check out the intro and recipes online here.

Photo by EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

I had this brilliant idea to use eggplant rounds instead of buns for more healthful sliders yesterday. Wrong! They just didn't work; Sig-O and I couldn't get the eggplant sturdy enough to hold the slider contents.

But here's what we did make that was spun off the same idea: eggplant stacks. We started with a sauteed eggplant round on the bottom (smeared with Dijon-style mustard), then topped it with a pastured beef mini-patty and a thick slice of red, ripe, perfect tomato - all served on a bed of baby arugula, garnished with red onion slivers and seasoned to taste.

Pictured: eggplant slider wannabes

While flipping through the current Think Geek catalog, I came across several cool foodie items.

But the best - and it's on sale right now - is the brownie and lasagna pan (pictured) that ensures every brownie or piece of lasagna has at least two coveted browned edges.

The catalog also has pi-shaped ice cube trays and bacon-flavored popcorn, among other geeky items.

Thank you to everyone who commented on the Best of DFW: Steakhouses story. That was a nice response, and we appreciate it!

I also had an email from Russ Vandeveerdonk, who sent this photo. "I read the 'weekend Guide,'" he wrote, 'and then had to cook a steak for myself. Looks just like the picture on the cover!"

Indeed it does! Thank you, Russ.

Photo by RUSS VANDEVEERDONK

I'm a little late passing on the link to this New York Times story about genetically altered salmon that grows to full size in about half the time it takes an unaltered fish. The news is that the Food and Drug Administration is fairly close to approving it, although whether it would be labeled as such is another question.

I admit I have mixed feelings about genetically altered foods. The bullying by Monsanto portrayed in Food, Inc. not withstanding, there are some compelling reasons to support some genetically altered crops, especially in a world faced with feeding ever-increasing numbers of people.

There's also no question that demand has put a lot of pressure on fish populations, with no end in sight. Is a genetically altered salmon (sterile females only; raised on inland farms, not in ocean pens) part of the answer? I don't have information enough to say. Tell me what you think after reading the story.

Kim Pierce has a good story about the great peach season -- with recipes! -- in today's paper. Check it.

EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

Meat and poultry, most of it grass-fed, are a couple of reasons I love shopping the farmers markets. Besides knowing their provenance, I can be reasonably sure I'm not eating bits and bites of hundreds of animals, and in most cases I'm supporting sustainable farming and ranching.

But it also gives me a chance to try some things I might not otherwise - like these goat-meat sliders (pictured). I was all set at White Rock Local Market last Saturday to buy goat stew meat from Windy Hill Organics and make a summer curry, but the woman in front of me got the last package.

What to do? On impulse, I bought the ground goat meat.

For the uninitiated, Cooks Illustrated is sorta like the love child of Bon Appetit and Consumer Reports. Incredibly detailed explanations of recipes. And mostly foods that you or your family actually eat.

The best CI recipes each have a trick you'd never think of on your own. Like using a couple of tablespoons of cold vodka in pie crust. It keeps the dough pliable for working but vanishes in cooking, leaving the crust tender.

The most recent issue has a banana bread recipe. What trick could there be to humble banana bread? head for the jump.

In today's GuideDaily cover story, special contributor Valerie Jarvie offers practical advice on how to raise your kids with an appreciation for food beyond chicken fingers and pizza. That's Kate Fundis, 10 (pictured right), preparing queso manchego, cotswold and il Boschetto al Tartufo cheese at Rise No. 1, where she so impressed the owners that they offered her an apprenticeship. Now, she works there Saturdays, doing sophisticated cheese presentations, among other duties. How cool is that?

Besides doing many of the things Jarvie suggests in the story, from classes to farm tours, I used another strategy when my daughter was growing up: She was allowed to spit out (into a napkin of course) anything she didn't like. This is a variation on the "eat one bite" rule. I still have vivid memories of having to choke down something completely repulsive on several occasions in my own childhood to honor "one bite." My daughter, now grown, says the spitting-out option made her much more willing to try foods. I bet there are lots of individual strategies like this out there. What's worked for you, whether as a parent or a child on the receiving end?

Photo by Courtney Perry/DMN

It's almost as much fun to read the summer Penzeys Spices catalog as it is to stroll through the store. Besides the many wonderful spices, from ground chile peppers (with Scoville heat ratings) to shallot salt, there are so many wonderful-sounding blends that allow you to experiment with exotic flavors when you're not quite ready to mix your own.

Curry powders range from a Balti blend to vindaloo seasoning. Sunny Spain Seasoning is the best-seller among the many no-salt blends. Taco seasoning mixes are parsed to four: taco seasoning, bold, chicken seasoning and rojo (pork).

And there are good-sounding recipes, such as Raul's fire station enchiladas and fresh peach pie. Request a copy by clicking on the website here, or pick one up at the Dallas store at Preston and LBJ Freeway.

This week's entry in AP's 20 Burgers of Summer series is Rick Bayless' chorizo chipotle burger, slathered with queso fundido. Check it. Maybe cook it. Tell us how it turns out.

AP Photo/Larry Crowe

In my Urban Acres bin the past two pickups have been some beautiful grapefruit and a bunch of oranges. (No, they haven't been local, but they're putting more and more local stuff into each bin by the week, which I'm thrilled about.)

But here's a confession: No matter how pretty they are, no matter how ruby red, I can't stand grapefruit. I've tried to give it away, but no takers. So the only solution I've come up with to deal with the grapefruit issue is to dilute it.

I made a grapefruit-orange granita a couple weeks ago, but there's only so much of that one person can eat. So as you can see above, I decided to preserve it, making grapefruit-orange (more like orange-grapefruit) marmalade.