We're in full-blown holiday shopping season. If the newspapers are to be believed, many of us will be holding tighter to our wallets this year.

But if you're on the holiday gift hunt, consider a culinary book. I've read several this year (or at least parts of several) on culinary history, and they have been fascinating. Most of these have been out for a while; if you haven't gotten to them, now might be the time. Make hints to Santa: Hint, hint.

"Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century" by Laura Shapiro (Random House, $16.95). This book examines the rise of the domestic scientists who transformed cooking into a measured endeavor. The development of the Boston Cooking School, and ultimately the Fannie Farmer cookbook, is particularly fascinating. So focused on technique were these women that they did not know what to do with the food made at the school. Like eat it.

"From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals" by Barbara Haber (Simon & Schuster, $25). This is a wide-ranging history that, at the same time, examines in detail the impact of cooks and social activists on history and foodways. This is also a great book about culinary psychology: who's working out what neurosis with what recipe. Some of it worked out well for the rest of us, too.

"American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes" edited by Molly O'Neill (Library of America, $40). From 18th-century letters from a father to his daughter on the subject of available food, to William Styron's narrative on frying chicken the proper Southern way, this book is a delight.

"Tablescapes: Setting the Table with Style" by Kimberly Schlegel Whitman (Gibbs Smith, $40). This is an astonishingly lovely coffee table book. Even if you never actually read it, or set your table in the elaborate, upscale ways pictured here, it's just wonderful to look at.

Of course, most of these books can be found slightly used or at great discount, so don't fear the prices. Whoever receives them will love them.

The 2008 Madrigal Dinner will be held on Saturday at Carnegie Mellon University, beginning with a 6:30 p.m. reception and dinner at 7:30 p.m. in the Rangos Ballroom.

"Ye Guests are invited to wear traditional clothe," says the invitation. Tickets: $12 for students, $10 children age 10 and under and $20 for all others (412-268-4886).

Editors at AOL Food took a poll to find out which holiday foods people hate most. No. 1: fruitcake. (That was too easy.)

In order, the rest: mincemeat; dry turkey; stuffing with weird stuff in it; gelatin salads; eggnog (no!); candied veggies; turducken (yes!); gravy skin; too-fancy cranberry sauce; lumpy mashed potatoes; "other"; and assorted chocolates. A total of 45,062 voted; I'll bet two of them have had turducken, a dish that proves someone had too much game and too much time on their hands. (It's a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey: Tur-duck-en.)

The Smithfield United Church of Christ is holding a Christmas Market outside the church at Smithfield Street and Strawberry Way. It began yesterday and continues today and tomorrow from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Treats include stollen from Wood Street Bakery; German cookies from Greb's Bakery, South Side; cards commissioned by nonprofit organizations; homemade candies; coffee and chocolate from the church's Free Exchange program with Latin American suppliers; lunch of soup, wurst and apple tart; more.

Get thee there.

That got your attention. The All-Clad seconds sale is tomorrow from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday; and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at Crate, 1960 Greentree Road, Scott (412-341-5700). At the Washington County Fairgrounds, 2151 N. Main St., Washington, Pa., times are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Order homemade baked goods (nut rolls; poppyseed, apricot and pumpkin rolls; apricot horns; nut tassies; ladylocks) through Dec. 12 from St. John the Baptist Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, 450 Glenwood Drive, Ambridge. Pick up at the sale on Dec. 23, where you can buy pierogies, halushki. To order and for more information, 724-869-5516 or 412-749-0675.

Palate Partners, Vin Fatales, Dreadnought Wines and local chocolatiers will hold a "Bubbles and Bon Bons" fundraiser from 6 to 8 p.m. Dec. 16 at Palate Partners, 2013 Penn Ave., Strip District. The event benefits Pittsburgh Dress for Success, favorite charity of Vin Fatales, a women-only wine-tasting and networking group. Tickets: $15 for members, $20 for other women. Reservations are required: 412-391-8502 or go to palatepartners.com.

Our roving band of taste-testers (our Magazine staff, which is always up to the challenge) loved original, all-natural popchips, billed as "All the flavor. Where's the fat?" -- 120 calories in a 1-ounce bag, 35 from fat; total fat 4 grams; no trans or saturated fats.

The chips are produced by applying heat and pressure and "snack magic" to somehow pop a potato mixture into the chips.

Besides original, they come in barbecue, salt & pepper; sea salt & vinegar; and parmesan garlic, which is in limited production. The flavored chips drew mixed reactions. Some felt they were too strong.

Available at Target, Jamba Juice and elsewhere. Go to popchips.com and enter your ZIP code to see.