AnnaC

Toba Garrett has an interesting use for cake crumbs in The Well-Decorated Cake - CAKE SPACKLE! She apparently uses a crumb-based mixture post-crumb coating to even out flaws, create a perfect base for fondant, etc - I haven't tested this yet but am planning to do so this weekend. I'm not convinced yet, but I'm certainly intrigued.

We're still finishing a great batch of Applesauce Spice Bars (very popular over in the "Baking: From My Home to Yours" forum), but you guys have given me a great excuse to try the "Independent Brownies" from "Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour & Traditions from Around the World" (Alford & Duguid, who brought us "Hot Sour Salty Sweet"): Kind of like the best possible version of those Hostess mini-brownies, if the outside were crispier, the texture better (in a cakey way), and the taste more grown-up. They look like they'll travel well, too.

The James Beard Award people were way ahead of me in 1999, but I love paging through Joseph Dabney's Smokehouse Ham, Spoonbread, & Scuppernong Wine. Like others here, I thoroughly enjoyed The Gift of Southern Cooking, but urge all of Lewis &/or Peabody's fans to pick up a copy of the 30th anniversary edition of Lewis's The Taste of Country Cooking. I cook more from the former, but her introductions to each section of Taste are really lyrical portraits. Absolute gems of Southern food writing.