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• Someone once told me that if a cookbook gives you only one new recipe, it’s worth the price you paid. Chef’s cookbooks provide the lion’s share but not far behind are the community fund-raisers whose contributors often dish up heirloom family recipes. One such book landed on my desk recently: Cooking with New Hope published by the New Hope Presbyterian Church of Chapel Hill, NC. I won’t pretend that there aren’t scores of familiar recipes here – there are – but also more than a few new to me: Martha Elrod Washington’s Homemade Cottage Cheese . . . Quaker’s Crackers . . . Presbyterian Hospital Plantation Soup . . . Annie’s White Chili . . . Granny Kate’s Mississippi Cornbread . . . Cloutie Dumplings . . . Grannie Black’s Steak Pie . . . Venison Summer Sausage . . . Cranachan . . . Modest Chafin’s Oat Cake. I especially like the book’s vintage black and white photographs of church suppers, community pickling and preserving sessions, grillin’ and barbecuin’. Particularly valuable: the Health Resources chapter and its long list of nutrition and health-related websites. For details on Cooking with New Hope (price, how to order, etc.), click on newhopepres@mindspring.com

• Another just-off-the-press fund-raiser I like: My Mama Made That: Virginia Favorites from the Junior League of Hampton Roads, Inc. A more sophisticated cookbook than Cooking with New Hope above, this one is also more slickly published (no shortage of four-color photographs). Thumbing through, I hungered for local specialties as well as old Virginia classics. And among the quiches, pastas, and margaritas, I did spot Perfect Southern Iced Tea . . . Chesapeake Pumpkin and Crab Soup . . . Cheesy Ham and Grits Soufflé . . . Hampton Yacht Club Collard Greens . . . Crab and Corn Tart . . . Oyster Stew and Mashers. Still, I would have welcomed more of the down-home and could have done with fewer of the trendy international dishes that seem to crop up time and again in community cookbooks. For details, click on www.JLHR.org.

• Just got a press release from Crook’s Corner, one of Chapel Hill, NC’s most beloved restaurants, and was delighted to learn that its summer dessert menu, in addition to featuring Chef Bill Smith’s brilliant Honeysuckle Sorbet, will also offer my Brown Sugar Pie (the recipe appears in my Love Affair with Southern Cooking). Here’s what Crook’s has to say: “For dessert, Bill Smith is continuing his exploration in pies. His latest attempt at old-fashioned pie nirvana succeeded: Jean Anderson's Brown Sugar Pie and can be served with whipped cream (Bill Smith's choice) or vanilla ice cream (so good it makes it hard to decide).” To view Crook’s summer menu, log onto www.crookscorner.com

• Fire!! Or rather fire ants. On a recent trek to my street-side mailbox, I noticed a big mound the color of sandstone with swarms of little red ants dashing about. Though I’d never seen fire ants in NC, I had on visits to Mississippi and remembered the advice good friends there had offered: “Never squash or kick a fire-ant mound. They’ll be all over you in seconds and the only solution is to strip.” I also remembered their recipe for annihilating fire ants: “Smother the mound with uncooked grits or cornmeal. The ants’ll eat it till they explode.” Sure enough. Within 24 hours, the mound had shrunk to a wet brown splotch and only a few stragglers tottered about. Hearing of my recent fire-ant scare, two other friends suggested equally effective, non-toxic, biodegradable methods: (1) Cover the mound with diatomaceous earth (available at many garden centers) and (2) Pile on cayenne pepper or hot pepper sauce. In short, fight fire with fire. If you know of other ways to combat fire ants, I’d love to hear them.