Favorite Fruitcakes: Favorite Fruitcakes: Recipes, Legends, and Lore from the World's Best Cooks and Eaters, as you might expect, is not a large book. It contains about 35 recipes for fruitcakes of various kinds, all of which are similar enough to bear the name, though the recipes come from different cooking traditions. The book is dotted with stories from many well-known and well-liked chef/authors, including Julia Child and James Beard, providing a little levity in a dense subject.
Clearly, the book is a good one for those who like fruitcake, but it is appropriate for others, as well. If you have never had a fruitcake, for example, these recipes are sound ones to start with. The book also makes a wonderful gift - and by wonderful, I mean amusing - for foodie friends who don't like the cake. Not only will you get to see the look on their face as they unwrap a book devoted to the stuff, but they will end up enjoying the writing on the subject, if not the cake itself.
And as I mentioned Julia's fruitcake, you can find her recipe (or one of them) here.
New York Times Magazine's food issue
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Eat your broccoli orbs! 
