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If you need to know what buckwheat cakes are, go here . My family eats buckwheat cakes with butter and maple syrup and a side of sausage. But I've seen people heap on sausage gravy or applesauce or apple butter to complement -- or maybe cover up -- the taste. I have heard of people smearing them with peanut butter or elderberry jam. I gotta ask: How do YOU eat your buckwheat cakes? Tell me in the comments.

Lest you think I ignored or neglected a big part of my heritage, here is my post about the 67th Annual Preston County Buckwheat Festival wrapping up in Kingwood. We almost didn't go this year -- things have been kind of up in the air since my mom's surgery. So we didn't enter any food or arts and crafts exhibits. We didn't see a parade. We didn't walk through the livestock exhibits. We didn't have family and friends over for our traditional buckwheat-cakes-and-sausage feed on the Sunday before the festival. My husband said he felt like it was too early this year but it always starts the last Thursday in September. Here, in photos, are the highlights of our festival traditions and some of the new things we did this year. May we be better prepared for next year's festival. We watched a lumberjack contest ... ... let Bella ride the carousel (for which we paid $3 -- yow) ... ... bought a chance on a handmade muzzleloader from a craftsman I wrote about, got some ...

Wow. Tonight's dinner was special and awesome. I consoled myself for missing tonight's firemen's parade at the 67th Annual Preston County Buckwheat Festival by making a fully-cooked-just-heat-and-eat glazed ham with from-scratch summer squash cornbread and sweet potato, dried cherry, Madras curry and bleu cheese dressing. (That's dressing as in a casserole-style side dish that can also be used to stuff turkeys and game hens, not salad dressing.) I'll get right to the recipes and photos. Yum! SQUASH CORN BREAD From Taste of Home's Simple & Delicious Sept./Oct. 2008 This recipe makes two -- one to eat now and one to freeze. If you're trying it for the first time, you can halve the ingredients make just one, as I did. I like that it packs in extra nutrition and uses up some summer squash. 5 medium yellow summer squash (about 2 pounds), chopped 2 packages (8 1/2 ounces each) cornbread/muffin mix, such as Jiffy 4 eggs, lightly beaten 2/3 cup 4 percent cottage...