For those of you going through withdrawal since the Texas Department of Criminal Justice pulled its list of death row inmates' last meal requests from its website, you'll soon be in luck. Coming soon to a bookstore near you, is Meals to Die For, by the former prison chef at Huntsville (LA Times, free subscription required):

Before it was discontinued, the Texas list of last meals provided fascinating if macabre reading. In fact, Brian Price, who prepared 220 final meals in the Huntsville, Texas, prison kitchen while an inmate himself before he was paroled last year, has written a book featuring recipes for some of those last bites before oblivion. "Meals to Die For," scheduled for publication next month, will have 42 recipes, including those with such jarring names as "post-mortem potato soup," "Uh-oh I'm dead meat loaf" and "rice rigor mortis."

"Meals to Die For" will be published by Paige Corp. of San Antonio, whose president, Frank Wesch, is Price's nephew. The 504-page book will contain Price's personal recollections of the execution day for each of the 220 killers whose last meals he cooked, as well as his accounts of the cases that led to 42 of the executions.