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BOOKS WE LOVE!

BOOKS

Every recipe we have tried from Zoe Nathan is perfection.  From Quince and Goat Cheese Tarts to the perennial favorite, Cranberry-Orange Cornmeal Cake!  You will want to bake your way through this book.  Her bakery in Santa Monica is absolute perfection, with an array of fresh bread including english muffins and brioche, firld trip worthy.   Put Huckleberry on your list of must have cook books.

Author Pascal Baudar views his home terrain of southern California (mountain, desert, chaparral, and seashore) as a culinary playground, full of wild plants and other edible and delicious foods (even insects) that once were gathered and used by native peoples but that have only recently begun to be re-explored and appreciated.

Compelling... The Third Plate reimagines American farm culture not as a romantic return to simpler times but as a smart, modern version of it...The Third Plate is fun to read, a lively mix of food history, environmental philosophy and restaurant lore... an important and exciting addition to the sustainability discussion."

If you like to cook outside, watch Francis Mallman on Chef's Table (available on netflix) and your mind will be blown!  In this book, Mallmann on Fire, the passionate master of the Argentine grill takes us grilling in magical places―in winter’s snow, on mountaintops, on the beach, on the crowded streets of Manhattan, on a deserted island in Patagonia, in Paris, Brooklyn, Bolinas, Brazil―each locale inspiring new discoveries as revealed in 100 recipes for meals both intimate and outsized. 

In Wicked Bugs, Stewart has uncovered the most terrifying and titillating
stories of bugs gone wild. It’s an A to Z of insect enemies, interspersed with sections that explore bugs with kinky sex lives “She’s Just Not That Into You”,  and creatures lurking in the cupboard “Fear No Weevil”!  Great book, very original.

In The Earth Moved, Amy Stewart takes us on a journey through the underground world and introduces us to one of its most amazing denizens. The earthworm may be small, spineless, and blind, but its impact on the ecosystem is profound. It ploughs the soil, fights plant diseases, cleans up pollution, and turns ordinary dirt into fertile land. Who knew? 

Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley, tequila from agave, rum from sugarcane, bourbon from corn. Thirsty yet?  In The Drunken Botanist, Amy Stewart explores the dizzying array of herbs, flowers, trees, fruits, and fungi that humans have, through ingenuity, inspiration, and sheer desperation, contrived to transform into alcohol over the centuries.

When Novella Carpenter--captivated by the idea of backyard self-sufficiency as the daughter of two back-to-the-earth hippies--moves to a ramshackle house in inner-city Oakland and discovers a weed-choked, garbage-strewn abandoned lot next door, she closes her eyes and pictures heirloom tomatoes, a beehive, and a chicken coop. Farm City is an instant classic!

Soil is the basis not only for all gardening, but for all terrestrial life. No aspect of agriculture is more fundamental and important.   Soul of the Soil is back in print, and this eminently sensible and wonderfully well-focused book provides essential information about one of the most significant challenges for those attempting to grow delicious organic vegetables: the creation and maintenance of healthy soil.

A self-trained cook turned James Beard Award–winning chef, Gabrielle Hamilton opened Prune on New York’s Lower East Side fifteen years ago to great acclaim and lines down the block, both of which continue today. A deeply personal and gracious restaurant, in both menu and philosophy, Prune uses the elements of home cooking and elevates them in unexpected ways. The result is delicious food that satisfies on many levels.  

Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Blood, Bones & Butter follows an unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years  By turns epic and intimate, Gabrielle Hamilton’s story is told with uncommon honesty, grit, humor, and passion.

The Enlivened Rock Powders  explores the practical side of using rockdusts as fertilizers, compost enrichers, and plant growth enhancers in this exciting book. Beginning with an explanation of the spiritual, cosmic side of rocks and drawing from his extensive knowledge of biodynamic techniques and dowsing, Lisle explains how to utilize these materials in agriculture. Peppered with in-depth quotations from other writings on the forces within rocks.

Mycelium Running is a manual for the mycological rescue of the planet. That’s right: growing more mushrooms may be the best thing we can do to save the environment, and in this groundbreaking text from mushroom expert Paul Stamets, you’ll find out how.  

Chef Edward Lee's story and his food could only happen in America. Raised in Brooklyn by a family of Korean immigrants, he eventually settled down in his adopted hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, where he owns the acclaimed restaurant 610 Magnolia. A multiple James Beard Award nominee for his unique patchwork cuisine, Edward creates recipes--filled with pickling, fermenting, frying, curing, and smoking--that reflect the overlapping flavors and techniques that led this Korean-American boy to feel right at home in the South

Winner of the 2013 James Beard Foundation Book Award for Reference and Scholarship, and a New York Times bestseller, The Art of Fermentation is the most comprehensive guide to do-it-yourself home fermentation ever published. Sandor Katz presents the concepts and processes behind fermentation in ways that are simple enough to guide a reader through their first experience making sauerkraut or yogurt, and in-depth enough to provide greater understanding and insight for experienced practitioners.

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