Eastern Europeans love pork and, frugal cooks as they are, nothing goes to waste -- heads, ears, feet, tails, innards, and the belly. What used to be considered scrap meat, relegated to enhancing the flavor of soup or cabbage, is now considered chi-chi and served in the hautest restaurants. Pork belly is running about $10 a pound, if you can find it, and you're paying mostly for fat. But, oh, that flavor. Yes, pork fat does rule, Emeril!

Chef Donald Link, chef Stephen Stryjewski and chef Warren Stephens, of Cochon (pig in French) Restaurant and Cochon Butcher in New Orleans, know their pork. Cochon receives whole pigs at its in-house butcher shop where blood puddings, sausages, smoked bacon, and head cheese, among other delights are created. The menu features braised pork belly, rabbit and other game meats. While pork belly is most frequently seen today as an appetizer, it can be eaten as a main course. Here is where pork belly, also known as the side, comes from.

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Create A Treat's Gingerbread Train Kit lives up to its hype. Everything is included -- EZbuild Tray for assembly, icing, decorations, and good instructions on the box. But seasoned gingerbread house maker that I am, I've got some nits to pick.

Despite kneading the icing bags as directed, the icing doesn't flow easily and for little hands and inexperienced adults, I think this would be a problem. It certainly makes piping lines of decorations impossible. I nuked my icing for 2 seconds and that helped, but I had to renuke at intervals to keep the icing pliable. I ended up making my own royal icing to decorate.

Still, if that's the only fault I can find with this kit, then I think it's a pretty good product. It certainly makes things easier if making a gingerbread house from scratch isn't in the cards. There's no mixing, rolling, cutting or baking. You just snap the pieces apart and start building. Oh, that's right, I used a paring knife to lightly score the lines to make the "snapping" more of a sure thing, but I still broke an edge off the roof. No problem, I just "glued" it together with the icing supplied.

The manufacturer provides a how-to video on its site, which is very helpful. The kid demo-ing it makes it look much easier than it is, but methinks he's had a lot of experience with these kits (there are more for other holidays).

Still, when time is an issue, this is a great way to create a memory with the kids. The train came together very fast. My recommendations to the manufacturer is to change the icing formula or instead of premixed icing, supply the ingredients to mix your own (yes, that would be a bit more work, but the results would be better), and a piping tip would be nice.

The bottom line: Can you make what the packaging says you can? Absolutely YES! Will it look like the picture on the box front? Not necessarily. Do you care? If the answer is "no," I heartily endorse this product. If the answser is "yes," consider purchasing the kit but making your own royal icing.

The manufacturer doesn't sell this product directly, so check this vendor's site for more information and how to order the Gingerbread Train Kit. I've always believed gingerbread houses are not just for Christmas anymore, now here's backup from King Arthur Flour Company.

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You don't have to be from New Orleans to appreciate "Dam Good Sweet." It's that dam good!

The book, co-authored by David Guas & Raquel Pelzel (The Taunton Press, 2009), is subtitled "Desserts to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth, New Orleans Style," but the 50 recipes ring true with any ethnic group. Consider Chocolate Doberge Cake and Lemon Doberge Cake, which are riffs on Hungarian dobosh torte, and Fig Jam, a confiture beloved by Eastern Europeans.

Pastry chef David Guas fills his book with personal anecdotes and the food photography by Ellen Silverman makes you want to eat the pages! A must for every dessert lover.

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Nov. 9, 1989, is a glorious day in the minds and hearts of the Eastern Bloc in Europe. It was the day East Berliners were allowed to visit those in West Berlin after decades of being separated. It was the day the wall effectively came down, and set the wheels in motion for an end to the Soviet domination of Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, the Czech and Slovak republics, and other countries, years later.

For Klara Cvitanovich, growing up in Dubrovnik, Croatia, a port city on the Adriatic Sea, the memories of Communist rule are seared in her consciousness. While she and her family were allowed to attend church, they were watched by neighbors who were informants.

"Only the best jobs, the best of everything went to those who were good Communists, who didn't go to church," Cvitanovich says.

After midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, she said her family would parade up and down the main square.

"It was a show of solidarity, of pride -- in other words, we know you are watching us, we know you control our livelihoods, but we are unafraid and we flaunt our religion in your faces," Cvitanovich says.

Christmas always meant steaming platters of Croatian sarma and trays piled high with krostule for dessert, a tradition she continues.

Today, Cvitanovich is as far removed from Dubrovnik as one could be. She and her husband, Drago Cvitanovich, and son, Tommy Cvitanovich, own Drago's Seafood restaurants in New Orleans and Metairie, La. Although she loves her new homeland, she makes frequent visits to Croatia to visit her mother and sister who still live there.

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