Crab Cakes

with turnips, brown rice, and salad. Delicious as it was, however, dinner was as nothing compared to dessert: "Damp Gingerbread" from Laurie Colwin's "More Home Cooking," and poached quinces from Alice Waters' "Chez Panisse Fruit." This was a dessert with stature--I know because I ate myself silly. A side note: I find that in any spicy, moist confection (carrot cake, pumpkin cake, gingerbread, etc.) whole wheat flour is basically indistinguishable from all-purpose, and so I substitute it.