Comments: This is what happens when you send a Southern lady off to cooking school in France – a mix of Southern dishes with some French techniques, French dishes with Southern sensibility, and a lot of good cooking. We are not, in general, smitten with books that include memory after memory of grandmother's cooking, mama's cooking, Great-Aunt-Belle's cooking, etc., but this is a charming book, with lots of nostalgia, but none of it smarmy, and tons of good recipes.

Recipes range from hors d-oeuvres to desserts, with everything in between, and included Black-Eyed Pea Salad, Fried Pork Chops with Pan Gravy, Boeuf Bourguignon, Louisiana Crawfish Boil, Heirloom Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese, Coca-Cola-Glazed Baby Back Ribs, Bourbon Sweet Potatoes, Vidalia Onion Quiche, Blackberry Cobbler, etc., etc.

If there's a surprise in this mix of the Southern and the French, it's the use of peppers, chiles, horseradish, and other spicy ingredients in more recipes than we would have expected.