Locals go to the B.T.C. Old-Fashioned Grocery in Water Valley, Mississippi, for its Skillet Biscuits and Sausage Gravy breakfasts, made-to-order chicken salad and spicy Tex-Mex Pimiento Cheese sandwiches, and daily specials like Shrimp and Grits that are as good as momma made. The B.T.C.’s freezers are stocked with take-home Southern Yellow Squash Casseroles and its counter is piled high with sweets like Peach Fried Pies as well as seasonal produce, local milk, and freshly baked bread. “Be the Change” has always been the store’s motto, and that’s just what it has done. What started as a place to meet and eat is now so much more, as the grocery has become the heart of a now-bustling country town. The B.T.C. Old-Fashioned Grocery Cookbook shares 120 of the store’s best recipes, giving home cooks everywhere a taste of the food that brought a community together, sparking friendships, reviving traditions, and revitalizing an American Main Street.

To celebrate the town's new library, librarian Maura Beth McShay and the Cherry Cola Book Club organizes a cooking contest to crown the "Queen of the Cookbooks."

Everybody has one in their collection. You know—one of those old, spiral- or plastic-tooth-bound cookbooks sold to support a high school marching band, a church, or the local chapter of the Junior League. These recipe collections reflect, with unimpeachable authenticity, the dishes that define communities: chicken and dumplings, macaroni and cheese, chess pie. When the Southern Foodways Alliance began curating a cookbook, it was to these spiral-bound, sauce-splattered pages that they turned for their model. Including more than 170 tested recipes, this cookbook is a true reflection of southern foodways and the people, regardless of residence or birthplace, who claim this food as their own. Traditional and adapted, fancy and unapologetically plain, these recipes are powerful expressions of collective identity. There is something from—and something for—everyone. The recipes and the stories that accompany them came from academics, writers, catfish farmers, ham curers, attorneys, toqued chefs, and people who just like to cook—spiritual Southerners of myriad ethnicities, origins, and culinary skill levels. Edited by Sara Roahen and John T. Edge, written, collaboratively, by Sheri Castle, Timothy C. Davis, April McGreger, Angie Mosier, and Fred Sauceman, the book is divided into chapters that represent the region’s iconic foods: Gravy, Garden Goods, Roots, Greens, Rice, Grist, Yardbird, Pig, The Hook, The Hunt, Put Up, and Cane. Therein you’ll find recipes for pimento cheese, country ham with redeye gravy, tomato pie, oyster stew, gumbo z’herbes, and apple stack cake. You’ll learn traditional ways of preserving green beans, and you’ll come to love refried black-eyed peas. Are you hungry yet?

Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region

95+ recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert from the award-winning Red Truck Bakery near Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, bringing the comfort and charm of the farmhouse where the bakery started into your kitchen “Original and highly personal, The Red Truck Bakery Farmhouse Cookbook is a joyful love story to many comfort foods.”—Jacques Pépin, chef and author “If a cookbook could be a page-turner, this is the one! Brian not only knows how to create comfort in spades, but he writes both the sweet and savory recipes in such a way that you feel like you’re part of those five generations who inspired these vittles.”—Carla Hall, chef and author ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Garden & Gun Brian Noyes, founder of the beloved Red Truck Bakery in Marshall, Virginia, and author of the Red Truck Bakery Cookbook, presents more than 95 all-new, comforting recipes celebrating ingredients and traditions from the bakery's home on the edge of the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge mountains. With small-town charm, an emphasis on local, seasonal produce, and country comfort inspiration from the 170-year-old farmhouse where the bakery began, The Red Truck Bakery Farmhouse Cookbook features Brian’s favorite savory recipes and old-time classics from family, friends, and the bakery archives. This is the food that Brian cooks at home as well as for the bakery's thousands of customers nationwide—plus recipes for favorite Red Truck Bakery dishes that have not been shared before. From delightful lunch and dinner options like Potato & Pesto Flatbread, Corn Crab Cakes with Jalapeño Mayonnaise, Mid-July Tomato Pie, Pork Tenderloin with Rosemary and Blueberries, and Sweet Potato and Poblano Enchiladas, to knockout desserts like Lexington Bourbon Cake, Virginia Peanut Pie, and Caramel Cake with Pecans (which Garden & Gun magazine called "the perfect Southern dessert"), the recipes in The Red Truck Bakery Farmhouse Cookbook are what we are all craving—unfussy, homey, Southern-leaning dishes that focus on local produce but don’t shy away from decadence. And for those who are eating vegetarian or vegan, there are plenty of plant-based options, like a vegan and gluten-free Coffee Cake, Carrot & Leek Pot Pies, Mushroom-Ricotta Lasagne with Port Sauce, and the Bakery's beloved “Beetloaf” Sandwiches. True to the spirit of the Red Truck Bakery, the recipes in the Red Truck Bakery Farmhouse Cookbook deliver unfailingly delicious comfort all year round.

Christmas is coming to the small town of Cherico, Mississippi, and there’s no better way to prepare than with the Cherry Cola Book Club’s feast of good food, good books—and good people... Cherico’s newlywed librarian Maura Beth Mayhew is back from her honeymoon and she and Jeremy McShay are settling into married life. Maura Beth’s father has even given them the down payment on a charming cottage. But as the holidays approach, Cherico’s economy is struggling. Beloved local shops have closed, jobs have been lost, and there’s even a mysterious crime spree afoot. Amid the gloom, Maura Beth decides what the community needs is a healthy dose of Christmas cheer—which means a special meeting of the Cherry Cola Book Club... Along with the delicious potluck offerings everyone has come to expect, Maura Beth has invited members and the public to share their most uplifting stories—and share they do. From poignant stories of grief and renewal to joyful stories of love and new life, Cherico’s residents infuse the gathering with so much hope and courage they just might inspire a culprit’s confession, and conjure a holiday miracle that could save the town—and Christmas... “A Cherry Cola Christmas is filled with the quirky, funny and charming characters we’ve grown to love and whose poignant tales become the true blessings of Christmas. This book belongs under every tree this season.”--Christa Allan "An intrepid librarian, a book club feast, and a cozy, heart-warming Mississippi mystery--what's not to love?"--Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

A follow-up to the author’s acclaimed Bon Appétit, Y’all, featuring 150 recipes that combine Southern flavors with time-honored French technique, and include a sophisticated variation that kicks each dish up a notch to make it brilliant. Virginia Willis has a knack for giving French recipes a downhome Southern feel. In Basic to Brilliant, Y’all, she builds on her signature style by offering 150 dual recipes: a soul-satisfying basic recipe accompanied by a technique, garnish, additional step, or short recipe that transforms a wonderful dish into a show stopper. A weeknight classic like Mama’s Chicken Pot Pie becomes sophisticated dinner party fare when it’s baked in a winter squash, and Old Fashioned Stove Top Low-Country Broth can be transformed into a Bouillabaisse-style broth with just a few simple changes. Throughout the book, Virginia paints a vivid picture of her Southern upbringing, drawing readers in with her vibrant tales of food and friends.

The Key to Amazing Chinese Meals is Selecting Top-Quality Ingredients Delicious, home-cooked Chinese food is just a few pantry staples away, thanks to celebrated chef and CookingBomb founder Vivian Aronson. Learn to select standout sauces, condiments, spices, noodles and more from the aisles of your local Asian market, then incorporate them into 60 must-try meals! Vivian’s detailed guide will teach you how to pick the right chili paste so you can make delicious Double Cooked Pork Belly. And once you find the right sesame oil, your Sesame Chicken will never be the same. You can even whip up a masterful Miso Salmon once you’ve discovered the perfect miso paste at your local market. With this invaluable resource, you’ll be ready to shop like a pro and prepare an impressive variety of recipes that capture the mouthwatering flavors, textures and aromas of any Asian market.

In this book, Jaime Harker uncovers a largely forgotten literary renaissance in southern letters. Anchored by a constellation of southern women, the Women in Print movement grew from the queer union of women's liberation, civil rights activism, gay liberation, and print culture. Broadly influential from the 1970s through the 1990s, the Women in Print movement created a network of writers, publishers, bookstores, and readers that fostered a remarkable array of literature. With the freedom that the Women in Print movement inspired, southern lesbian feminists remade southernness as a site of intersectional radicalism, transgressive sexuality, and liberatory space. Including in her study well-known authors—like Dorothy Allison and Alice Walker—as well as overlooked writers, publishers, and editors, Harker reconfigures the southern literary canon and the feminist canon, challenging histories of feminism and queer studies to include the south in a formative role.

Bitcoin first appeared in 2009, and it's already challenging everything we've come to accept about money, financial institutions, and even government. The digital currency can be nearly anonymous. And it can be traded internationally—without the fees, government regulation, and bank oversight of paper money. But Bitcoin is still risky. Its value fluctuates wildly. More than $400 billion of it disappeared overnight with the fall of a single trading exchange. How is that possible? And why is it so popular? CNNMoney reporter Jose Pagliery explains it all. He details the digital currency's mysterious origins. He explores the dark side of Bitcoin: a world of drugs and assassins for hire. And he examines the economic impact of this revolutionary concept through interviews with pensive economists, wary bank regulators, and free market proponents such as Ron Paul. Bitcoin: And the Future of Money explains how it works and why it matters. The book is essential reading for anyone looking to understand a financial innovation that will forever change how we think about money.