Only two of the book's 50 recipes were created near Philly. This is undoubtedly due to Tasty Baking. (Nationally, supermarket sales of Tastykake Cupcakes and Hostess Twinkies run neck and neck at fourth and fifth most popular snack cakes, respectively. Here in Philly, Tastykake Cupcakes are No. 1 and Twinkies, a distant 17, according to scanner-data-collector Information Resources, Inc.)

I chatted on the phone briefly with area Twinkie chefs Michele Isbrecht Greenbaum of Greater Norristown and Ed Dubroski of Colonia, N.J., and both seem nice, but creatively speaking Greenbaum's triflelike Twinkie-Choconana Toffee Crunch and Dubroski's Twinkie Ice Cream don't hold a Krimpet to Diana Gonya's Pineapple Twinkie Pudding pork side dish. (The recipe note says Gonya served this to "a surprise dinner guest," thus, we'll bet, permanently curing him of that bad habit.) Even more impressive is Janine O'Barr's two-part argument for sleeping in: pork-link-stuffed Twinkies and Twinkie French toast. Now there's a woman worth talking to—if only to ask why her Pigs in a Twinkie directions fuss about cooking the pork thoroughly when anyone who ate this for breakfast regularly would surely die from heart disease.

My Pigs in a Twinkie emerged from the oven looking enough like Pigs in Cornbread for its extreme sweetness to surprise and disappoint. But O'Barr's egg-dipped and pan-fried French Twinkies were a revelation reminiscent of a fresh doughnut. Although her maple syrup accompaniment works, I got to thinking berry coulis might be even better.

"Gotcha," I can almost hear the Twinkie Cookbook creators gloat.