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Spiced Honey Cake

The Recipe: A simple honey-sweetened loaf cake (or a Bundt cake, your choice) rich with warm fall- and cold-weather spices. Is it perfect for Rosh Hashanah? Maybe. But you'll not find me saying so. The Conversation: Are spices your sprinkles? Me too! ~ Skip Straight to the Recipe ~ No Cultural Appropriation Here Back in high school, I immersed myself into the mesmerizing world of Chaim Potok's My Name Is Asher Lev . Back in August, I attended my first bat mitzvah, a moving ceremony and right of passage in the Jewish faith. But honestly? That's the sum total of my personal experience with the faith, culture and and tradition of Judaism, including Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year (celebrated this past weekend) where honey cakes symbolize the hope that the coming year will bring much sweetness – you know, like black-eyed peas and greens are eaten in the American South as the calendar turns from one year to the next. (Hmmm. Honey versus dried beans and bitte

Cornmeal Muffins with Peaches

The Recipe: Barely sweet, pretty muffins with great texture, thanks to the natural sweetness of fresh summer peaches plus the structure of cornmeal. Mix the muffins with a whisk, no mixer required! The Conversation: Strange Fruit, the music of a tragic period in our country's history. ~ Skip Straight to the Recipe ~ Strange Fruit Something that until now, only iTunes knows about me: for a good 15 years, I've collected a personal playlist of the many haunting renditions of Billie Holiday's iconic song, "Strange Fruit." An odd thing to bring up with a recipe? Perhaps. Well, okay, YES. But there I was last week comfortably settled into my "Friday office" at Starbucks, iced coffee in hand and intent on putting pencil to pixel for this summer muffin recipe, moving it from my scribbles to your breakfast table. But then? Google's homepage stopped me in my tracks. I didn't know about the Silent Parade , did you? It happened 100 years a