Required Reading

        The Southern states may have a wonderful tradition of home cooking, but you've got to admit that as it's often practiced, it's likely to be greasy, over cooked and not particularly good for you.

        Damon Lee Fowler's New Southern Kitchen (Simon and Schuster; $26) keeps the soul of the South, working with familiar techniques and ingredients, but applies an enlightened 21st-century approach. For instance, those cooked-forever southern green beans show up here as slow-cooked pole beans with Parmesan. There is an up-to-date way to fry chicken, starting with brining and a soak in buttermilk. There's a savory asparagus shortcake and a dish of sauteed shrimp with tomatoes and okra, like a gumbo, but quick and fresh. One recipe is for biscuits made with olive oil, while another traditional one insists on lard.

Q&A

        Q: I received a bottle of grapeseed oil. Does it come from Italy or France? Can grapeseed oil be used in cooking in place of olive oil?

        A: Like olive oil, grapeseed oil — which is produced in several European countries and recently in the United States — has been popular in Europe for centuries. It is rich in vitamin E and linoleic acid.

        Grapeseed oil is gaining popularity in the United States as a cooking oil because of its high smoke point (the temperature at which it begins to break down and burn when heated). According to Shirley Corriher in Cookwise, grapeseed oil reaches a smoke point at 446 degrees.

        In How to Cook Everything, author Mark Bittman rates grapeseed oil and canola oil as excellent neutral oils because of their high smoke points and minimal saturated fat.

        “I don't usually recommend them for salads — all they add is a vague oiliness — but they're great for deep-frying and acceptable for sauteing,” Mr. Bittman writes.

We Tried It

        Hunt's Squeez 'n Go pudding

The first time I packed lunch for my kids, I wrapped saltines in aluminum foil, spread peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat bread and added a homemade cookie. After a few years, my kids started asking if they could please have something like the other kids: a juice box or a bag of Fritos.

        Nowadays, and I'm not proud of this, they sometimes grab a tube of yogurt, a pack of pretzels, a box of juice and a fruit cup with a peel-off lid. (Sandwiches? who needs sandwiches?) So, while I think sucking on your food is uncivilized, chocolate pudding in a tube does fit into our family's lunch strategy.

        These Squeez 'n Go tubes are the same pudding as the Hunt's Snack Pack, and come in chocolate, vanilla, chocolate fudge, chocolate brownie, strawberry and banana. It's billed as a good source of calcium, though one tube has only 6 percent of the daily value, so don't forget to put milk money in their lunch, too. Priced about $2.69 per box of eight.

More Keepers

        Here's a few more things that have been in storage for a while while my kitchen was being remodeled that are definitely going in the new one:

        • KitchenAid standing mixer. It takes up a lot of counter space, but I would never give it up. It makes baking a cake or a big batch of cookies no big deal. And it's especially great for getting bread dough started (I think it's best if you finish kneading it by hand).

        • Spiral whip: Big French wire whisks are fun for making sabayon or lightly beating cream, and I'm sure really skillful cooks use them for making other kinds of sauces. But when it comes to making gravy or white sauce or chocolate pudding, I have to use a spiral whip. It blends thickening into liquid, mashes out lumps and gets into the corner of the pan.

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