Flour

In Russia and eastern Europe kasha is most often made into thick gruel. Instead, we turned the roasted buckwheat kernels into a fantastic side dish studded with butter-toasted walnuts and browned onion.

You may want to double this recipe—the apple-walnut topping and whipped cream make these cakes disappear fast.

In the late nineteenth century, the city of Czernowitz, known as the Vienna of Eastern Europe, was famous throughout Austria-Hungary for its tolerance, civic beauty, culture, and learning. Frequently renationalized over the last millennium, Czernowitz has passed through Romanian, Ottoman, and Austrian control and is now a Ukrainian city called Chernivtsi. At its cultural peak at the turn of the twentieth century, it was populated and governed by Jews from Poland, Russia, Austria, and Romania — it even hosted the first-ever Yiddish-language conference in 1908. Of course, World War II destroyed this idyll, and most of the city's Jews were deported to Auschwitz. This recipe for a classic European challah (pronounced "chern-o-vitzer") comes from the late Lotte Langmann. It is not terribly sweet or eggy, but it is generously enriched with oil. The Austrians traditionally use a four-stranded braid, but this dough holds its shape so beautifully during baking that it is a great choice for showing off any fancy shape. This has become one of my favorite challah recipes.

Inspired by the many delicious recipes I found for apple challah, I set out to create the most intensely appley version possible. I started with a sweet challah dough and crammed in as many apples as possible. To minimize surface area and hence excess apple juice, I cut the apples into very large chunks — I also like the distinctive and succulent way these show up in the baked bread. I avoided cinnamon, to let the apple flavor shine unencumbered, but finished off the bread with a sugared crust. After many tests, the final bread was such a favorite that tester Rita Yeazel worked on improving the method for days, determined to come up with an easier way to incorporate the apples. Because I wanted the apples' flavor to permeate the dough, I had wanted to add them during mixing, not shaping, but that meant a lengthy, messy, and difficult hand-knead. Now, thanks to her persistence, I roll out the dough after an hour of fermentation, when the dough is more extensible and is fairly soft, scattering the apples over it and folding the dough around them. Then, as the dough continues to rise, the apples become an integral part of it — and so the tedious hand-kneading phase is unnecessary. I suggest using Braeburn apples, which are easily available in most areas, have a good spicy flavor, and do not fall apart during baking; but you can substitute any favorite baking apple. This bread is wonderful for breakfast or with coffee. It also makes an enticing Rosh Hashanah centerpiece and a much-appreciated gift.

This play of bitter, sweet, and crunchy goes beautifully with an aperitif or a cold glass of beer or white wine.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Cal-a-Vie Living: Gourmet Spa Cuisine and is part of a healthy and delicious spa menu developed exclusively for Epicurious by Cal-a-Vie.

Eating one of these individual pies is quite different from your basic fork-and-plate experience. A bite through the crisp pastry, sparkling with sugar, reveals a thick filling of sweet-and-tart fruit.

The beauty of plums becomes all the more evident when they are displayed in a galette. Accompanied by sweetened Armagnac crème fraîche, this one makes a wonderfully sophisticated dessert.

Brandi Neuwirth of Cary, North Carolina, writes: "My family and I moved here from Los Angeles last year, and my new surroundings have really influenced my cooking. There's a great farmers' market nearby where I get lots of local ingredients like tomatoes, squash, and, of course, okra. The produce there inspired me to create this dish, which is a real taste of the South." Tossing the okra in cornmeal before frying creates a crisp coating, adding texture to this colorful, summery dish.

Galatopita, or milk pie, has a crisp phyllo crust and a dense, satisfying custard filling made with semolina flour. It is among the dairy specialties of Epirus and Thessaly; we like this version from Ioannina.

(Music Paper Bread) _Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Giuliano Bugialli's book _Foods of Sicily & Sardinia. We've also added some helpful tips of our own, which appear at the bottom of the page. This recipe originally accompanied Jumbo Shrimp with Fregola.

(Pão) Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Jean Anderson's book Process This!. Anderson also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Anderson and Portuguese cuisine, click here. What I wanted to do here was turn the food processor into a bread machine, that is, to see if I could proof the yeast, mix and knead the dough, even let it rise in the processor. I'm pleased to say that it worked perfectly. I don't recommend this technique for bigger batches of yeast dough, for more complex recipes, and certainly not for wimpy food processors with small work bowls (you need at least an 11-cup capacity). For this simple five-ingredient loaf, however, a big, powerful machine does it all. This "daily bread" of Portugal is both crusty and chewy thanks to the steam ovens in which it's baked (I bake my bread at very high temperature over a shallow pan of water). Because Portuguese flours are milled of hard wheat, I've fortified our softer-wheat all-purpose flour with semolina and find the texture exactly right. This dough is unusually stiff and for that reason I use the metal chopping blade throughout — the stubby dough blade merely spins the dough against the sides of the work bowl. I also use high-speed churning throughout (the ON button) instead of a "dough mode" because it does a better job of developing the gluten (wheat protein) that forms the framework of this bread.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Paula Wolfert's book The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. Wolfert also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. Here's a fast bread for slow foods. Small as a pancake, these easy-to-make, grainy-textured griddle breads are similar to those sold on the streets of Casablanca and Tunis. No yeast is required. A combination of coarse semolina and fine pasta flour provides a butter-colored interior and blotchy black exterior. Serve these breads as a hot hors d'oeuvre with North African herb or tomato jams or for breakfast brushed with butter or argan oil and honey.

This puffy deep-fried bread has a beautiful sheen and is wonderfully flaky. Its ravishing appearance is matched only by its exquisite flavor. This is why poori is generally served at parties, special dinners, wedding banquets, and most festive occasions. 

This spoon bread is as tender as a soufflé but much simpler to make.

Healthy bonus: 1/2 serving of fruit per slice, potassium from bananas, iron from walnuts

Round out your breakfast: Add 1 cup steamed skim milk (heat on stove or in microwave until milk starts to froth) topped with 2 tsp nutmeg and 1 tsp honey.

Saturday breakfast. From Lake Austin Spa Resort in Austin, Texas. These Southwestern-style pancakes (with antioxidant-rich blueberries) run rings around an a.m. bagel. Executive chef Terry Conlan uses dried or frozen berries when fresh aren't available. Invite pals over and whip up an impressive stack.