Score scone mix a winner

Peaches and cream go perfect with summer, and they're ideal companions in a new scone mix from King Arthur Flour, too. The mix, with dried peaches, requires about 10 minutes to prepare for baking, from adding butter, an egg and milk, to patting into a circle on a baking pan.

We prepared the scones following package directions, and within a half-hour of opening the box had rich, luscious pastries, warm from the oven, ready for breakfast. The one drawback: Like so many of King Arthur's baking mixes, you'll need to order this one. Even with shipping costs, you'll still come out ahead of picking up eight scones at a bakery —- and there's no questioning their freshness. A 17-ounce box that makes eight large scones is $6.95 at www.kingarthurflour.com. There's a 15 percent discount on orders of five or more baking mixes.

Delta cuisine comes alive

The best regional cookbooks evoke a sense of place not only through food, but through atmosphere. "Screen Doors and Sweet Tea" (Clarkson Potter, $32.50), written by a native of the Mississippi Delta who is now executive chef of the Viking Cooking School in Greenwood, Miss., is such a book. The Delta lingers on every page of Martha Hall Foose's work, from the juleps that Foose likes to serve in cups made from Mississippi clay, to her recollections about soaking up Willie Morris' novels as a child and spending Christmas holidays cracking coconuts for cakes and ambrosia. Color photos of people, places and prepared foods are plentiful.

The book offers more than nostalgia, though. Foose has cooked her way around Louisiana, Mississippi and states far from the Delta in cuisine and geography; opened a couple of bakeries; and studied pastry in France. She offers inventive twists on Southern favorites, like a frozen cucumber salad dressed with champagne vinegar and lime juice, as well as dishes influenced by 20th-century immigrants to Mississippi, like watermelon salsa and Chinese Grocery Roast Pork. Standards like field peas with snaps and West Indies Salad, the cold crab salad no Gulf Coast bridesmaids' luncheon should be without, are here, too.

A snack instead of a meal

Boxed macaroni and cheese, love it or hate it, has its fans. And if you can't get enough of that powdered, faux cheese flavor, then you may want to check out Kraft's latest attempt at brand extension, Macaroni & Cheese Crackers, in three flavors. I'll give it one thing, it does taste like boxed mac 'n' cheese, except with a crunch instead of a squish.

If you're looking for real cheese flavor in a cracker, though, keep looking. The cheddar flavor is as mild as Velveeta and the macaroni shape of the cracker is odd. Suggested retail for an 8-ounce box is $2.99.