Best Dressed Southern Salads: Sumptuous Southern Salads from Key West to Washington, D.C. (Capital Lifestyles)

Best Dressed Southern Salads is much more than a cookbook – it’s a gastronomic journey of sumptuous salad toppings from Key West to Washington, D.C. The South has always offered a distinctive version of cuisine, but now writer Vicky Moon slices it apart state by state. Recipes such as "South Beach" present a surprising blend of brown sugar, celery seed and dry mustard with red wine vinegar and olive oil. Served over Bibb lettuce, Florida oranges, Florida avocados and sliced tomatoes (from Florida, of course), it's best nibbled while watching the world go by in one of the liveliest neighborhoods imaginable (you’ll remember it from the movie, "The Birdcage").

"Mrs. Gotrock's Palm Beach Fruit Salad Dressing" is said to be a secret mixture from one of the most famous hostesses of all time. Meander along the trail with "Buckhead Champagne Dressing" from Atlanta, "Delicious Dandelion Salad" from Charlotte and "Caper and Caviar Dressing" all from the southern most tip of the United States to our Nation's Capitol. Discover the recipes, the people and the places that make Southern cooking such a treat, written in the style of Vicky’s previous book, The Middleburg Mystique that The Washington Times hailed as: "Titillating tales of divorce, murder, mayhem and madness among the owner-squires of exquisite hunt-country estates."

Vicky Moon has chronicled the lives of the rich, the not-so-rich, the famous, and the not-so-famous for more than twenty years. She has covered her hometown of Middleburg, Virginia's local murders and prominent lives for People Magazine and the Washington Post. She has also written about Middleburg's hunt balls, steeplechase races and parties for Town and Country, Millionaire and Southern Accents magazines and has served as a contributing editor for House and Garden. Ms. Moon is the author of The Official Middleburg Life Cookbook, The Middleburg Mystique: A Peek Inside the Gates of Middleburg, Virginia (Capital, 2001); and Best-dressed Southern Salads (Capital, 2002). Vicky lives in Middleburg, Virginia, with her husband, sportswriter Leonard Shapiro, and her son. Find out more about Vicky at www.vickymoon.com.