Dairy

This dish would be great served with fried eggs for brunch.

Burrata, an ultra-creamy fresh mozzarella, is available at specialty cheese shops.

The buttermilk in our recipe makes these airy rolls especially tender.

In this recipe, the word biscuit refers to a savory cracker.

Tracy Jones Midland, Texas, writes: "I wanted to share a Christmas breakfast recipe given to my mother, Cherry Jones, by Ann Westerman, a lifelong friend. My family quickly adopted the tradition of preparing this dish on Christmas Eve, then baking it on Christmas morning while opening our presents." The thick slices of garlicky bread in this dish are known as Texas toast.

Fredricka Schwanka of Terryville, Connecticut, re-created her grandmother's recipe for these pastrylike cookies. This dough is extremely tender — if at any time during the filling process it gets too soft to work with, chill it on wax paper on a large baking sheet. You will have leftover filling, which is wonderful spread on toast or an English muffin.

These savory rugelach are made with a cream-cheese-based dough, which softens very quickly. If the dough becomes tricky to work with, chill it until firm, then continue with the recipe.

English farmhouse-style white Cheddars such as Montgomery, Keen's, and Fiscalini were delicious in this pie. We also liked Grafton Cheddar, from Vermont.

Don't be put off by this recipe if you don't like the slippery texture of okra — it disappears when the okra is coated in batter.

Corn bread sweetened with sugar must be a Yankee invention, because corn bread in the South is always a savory staple. We like to keep it simple, but don't stint on the fat, whether butter or bacon fat (or oil, if you must). Corn bread, corn muffins, and corn sticks should all be cooked to a dark shade of golden brown and turned out while hot, the steam rising fragrant with the aromas of corn and bacon, as you break into them.