Close your eyes and imagine the smell of fresh bread wafting under your nose. Are you smiling yet? One of life's greatest pleasures is sinking your teeth into a buttery slice of crusty bread, still warm from the oven. And yet there is, especially in the United States, almost a universal carelessness about the quality and taste of the bread that we eat on a daily basis. People eat the most appalling trash imaginable, and accept it as a matter of course. The normal bread in an American household is a pasty white bread that is more air than food, devoid of nutrients, and stuffed with chemicals...

I'm from the South, and I love to cook. Most people think cuisine in the South consists only of beans, greens and cornbread - and though those are delicious - it's not all we cook here. When people think of Southern cooking, they don't think gourmet, but it's the very essence of gourmet food, nonetheless. We start with fresh ingredients, and we mix them in surprising ways. We mix sweet, savory, hot, and sour with abandon, creating a menu that is fabulously varied. Some of these dishes have roots all the way back to our ancestors who immigrated to this country, and there's a fine mix of...