Surely, if you yourself don't like to cook, you at least know someone who does. I have found Hugh Acheson's A New Turn in the South to be among my favorite cookbooks, not so much because of its lovely photography (courtesy of Rinne Allen) and committed localism, but because of its clear, direct recipes that, if followed, result in deliciousness.

The roasted beet and carrot salad with feta and a mint-cumin vinaigrette, for example, is reliably awesome. The peanut and avocado soup that incorporates both tomatoes and curry powder is likewise. It is a cookbook that deserves to have its pristine pages splattered with ingredients from the recipes it contains.

Acheson will be signing/personalizing copies tonight at Avid Bookshop starting at 6:30 p.m., so if you still do not have a copy/need to convert someone else/require a non-splattered book for your coffee table to match the splattered one in your kitchen, you should get on over there.