This corn bread is packed with cheese, onions, and whole corn, and flavored with bacon drippings. Need I say more? Recipe courtesy of my friend Lynn R. of Newton, Mass., who I think adapted it from one in The Southern Living Cookbook. Lynn likes to make it with Shoepeg white corn. We used regular yellow corn and it turned out terrific. Perfect with chili.

The recipe calls for the corn bread to be baked in the oven in a cast iron skillet. We serve the corn bread at the table directly from the skillet, the benefit being that because the cast iron holds its heat so well, the corn bread stays warm throughout the entire meal.