Small-Space Container Gardens: Transform Your Balcony, Porch, or Patio with Fruits, Flowers, Foliage, and Herbs


Fern Richardson - 2012
    A concrete slab populated with plastic chairs and an abandoned grill? Not anymore.Small-Space Container Gardens layers practical gardening fundamentals with creative solutions, encouraging us to think “outside the pot.” You'll learn how to tackle unique challenges, like windy conditions several stories above street level, and how to care for plants and troubleshoot problems like garden pests and diseases. From design basics to essential plant picks, Small-Space Container Gardens proves you don't need a yard to have a happy, healthy garden. For anyone who wants more green in their life, it's time to start gardening creatively in small spaces.

The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country


Peter Bane - 2012
    Imagine how much more self-reliant our communities would be if thirty million acres of lawns were made productive again. Permaculture is a practical way to apply ecological design principles to food, housing, and energy systems, making growing fruits, vegetables, and livestock easier and more sustainable.The Permaculture Handbook is a step-by-step, beautifully illustrated guide to creating resilient and prosperous households and neighborhoods, complemented by extensive case studies of three successful farmsteads and market gardens. This comprehensive manual casts garden farming as both an economic opportunity and a strategy for living well with less money. It shows how, by mimicking the intelligence of nature and applying appropriate technologies such as solar and environmental design, permaculture can:Create an abundance of fresh, nourishing local produce Reduce dependence on expensive, polluting fossil fuels Drought-proof our cities and countryside Convert waste into wealthPermaculture is about working with the earth and with each other to repair the damage of industrial overreach and to enrich the living world that sustains us. The Permaculture Handbook is the definitive practical North American guide to this revolutionary practice, and is a must-read for anyone concerned about creating food security, resilience, and a legacy of abundance rather than depletion.Peter Bane is a permaculture teacher and site designer who has published and edited Permaculture Activist magazine for over twenty years. He helped create Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina, and is now pioneering suburban farming in Bloomington, Indiana.

No Meat Athlete, Revised and Expanded: A Plant-Based Nutrition and Training Guide for Every Fitness Level—Beginner to Beyond [Includes More Than 60 Recipes!]


Matt Frazier - 2018
    Veganism, already a top food trend and diet, is taking off in the sports world. The lifestyle has been adopted by Olympians, body builders, and boxers, as well as top athletes in the NBA and NFL. Hollywood is on board, too. James Cameron (director of Avatar and Titanic) has produced a film on the topic called The Gamechangers, which follows vegan athletes, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, U.S. Olympian Kendrick James Farris, and surfer Tia Blanco.In No Meat Athlete, author, blogger, and hundred-mile ultramarathoner Matt Frazier will show you the many benefits to embracing a plant-based athletic lifestyle, including:Weight loss, which often leads to increased speedEasier digestion and faster recovery after workoutsImproved energy levels to help not only athletic performance, but your daily lifeReduced impact on the planetIn this revised and updated edition, you'll also find new recipes, advice, and an all-new 12-week strength training plan designed to improve your overall fitness. Section I of the book provides practical advice for transitioning to a plant-based lifestyle, while ensuring you are getting all the nutrition you need. In Section II, Matt delivers training manuals of his own design for runners of all ability levels and ambitions, including tips for creating healthy habits, improving performance, and avoiding injuries.No Meat Athlete is your road map to top-notch performance, the plant-based way!

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science


J. Kenji López-Alt - 2015
    Kenji López-Alt has pondered all these questions and more. In The Food Lab, Kenji focuses on the science behind beloved American dishes, delving into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don’t work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new—but simple—techniques. In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes with over 1,000 full-color images, you will find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to transform one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more.

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking


Samin Nosrat - 2017
    Chef and writer Samin Nosrat has taught everyone from professional chefs to middle school kids to author Michael Pollan to cook using her revolutionary, yet simple, philosophy. Master the use of just four elements—Salt, which enhances flavor; Fat, which delivers flavor and generates texture; Acid, which balances flavor; and Heat, which ultimately determines the texture of food—and anything you cook will be delicious. By explaining the hows and whys of good cooking, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will teach and inspire a new generation of cooks how to confidently make better decisions in the kitchen and cook delicious meals with any ingredients, anywhere, at any time. Echoing Samin’s own journey from culinary novice to award-winning chef, Salt, Fat Acid, Heat immediately bridges the gap between home and professional kitchens. With charming narrative, illustrated walkthroughs, and a lighthearted approach to kitchen science, Samin demystifies the four elements of good cooking for everyone. Refer to the canon of 100 essential recipes—and dozens of variations—to put the lessons into practice and make bright, balanced vinaigrettes, perfectly caramelized roast vegetables, tender braised meats, and light, flaky pastry doughs. Featuring 150 illustrations and infographics that reveal an atlas to the world of flavor by renowned illustrator Wendy MacNaughton, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will be your compass in the kitchen. Destined to be a classic, it just might be the last cookbook you’ll ever need. With a foreword by Michael Pollan.

The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food


Ben Hewitt - 2008
    Even as the recent financial downturn threatens to cripple small businesses and privately owned farms, a stunning number of food-based businesses have grown in the region-Vermont Soy, Jasper Hill Farm, Pete's Greens, Patchwork Farm & Bakery, Apple Cheek Farm, Claire's Restaurant and Bar, and Bonnieview Farm, to name only a few. The mostly young entrepreneurs have created a network of community support; they meet regularly to share advice, equipment, and business plans, and to loan each other capital. Hardwick is fast becoming a model for other communities to replicate its success. Author Ben Hewitt presents the captivating story of a small town coming back to life, The Town That Food Saved is narrative nonfiction at its best: full of colorful characters and grounded in an idea that will revolutionize the way we eat.

This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader


Joan Dye Gussow - 2001
    She lives in a home not unlike the average home in a neighborhood that is, more or less, typically suburban. What sets her apart from the rest of us is that she thinks more deeply - and in more eloquent detail- about food. In sharing her ponderings, she sets a delightful example for those of us who seek the healthiest, most pleasurable lifestyle within an environment determined to propel us in the opposite direct. Joan is a suburbanite with a green thumb, but also a feisty, defiant spirit with a relentlessly positive outlook.This Organic Life begins with Joan and her husband Alan's trials and tribulations growing vegetables for their own table while coping with careers and a sprawling Victorian house in Congers, New York. Motivated to go "off -the-grid" of the global food system in their later years, the Gussows find and fall in love with a dilapidated Odd Fellows Hall on the banks of the Hudson River. Joan's often hilarious accounts of the "renovation" of the "dream" (some would say "nightmare") house and the creation of their new gardens are spiced by extracts from her own journal, and over thirty wonderful recipes using fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables.There is also an occasion pontification about a food distribution system run amok! At the heart of This Organic Life is the premise that locally grown food eaten in season makes sense economically, ecologically, and gastronomically. Transporting produce to New York from California -- not to mention Central and South America, Australia, or Europe -- consumes more energy in transit than it yields in calories. (It costs 435 fossil fuel calories to fly a 5-calorie strawberry from California to New York.) Add in the deleterious effects of agribusiness, such as the endless cycle of pesticide, herbicide, and chemical fertilizers; the loss of topsoil from erosion of over-tilled croplands; depleted aquifers and soil salinization from over-irrigation; and the arguments in favor of "this organic life" become overwhelmingly convincing.

Grow a Little Fruit Tree: Simple Pruning Techniques for Small-Space, Easy-Harvest Fruit Trees


Ann Ralph - 2014
    These great little trees take up less space, require less care, offer easy harvest, and make a fruitful addition to any home landscape.

The All New Ball Book Of Canning And Preserving: Over 200 of the Best Canned, Jammed, Pickled, and Preserved Recipes


Jarden Home Brands - 2016
    This modern handbook boasts more than 200 brand new recipes ranging from jams and jellies to jerkies, pickles, salsas, and more.Organized by technique, The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving covers water bath and pressure canning, pickling, fermenting, freezing, dehydrating, and smoking. Straightforward instructions and step–by–step photos ensure success for beginners, while practiced home canners will find more advanced methods and inspiring ingredient twists.Tested for quality and safety, recipes range from much–loved classics—Tart Lemon Jelly, Tomato–Herb Jam, Ploughman's Pickles—to fresh flavors such as Asian Pear Kimchi, Smoked Maple–Juniper Bacon, and homemade Kombucha. Make the most of your preserves with delicious dishes including Crab Cakes garnished with Eastern Shore Corn Relish and traditional Strawberry–Rhubarb Hand Pies. Special sidebars highlight seasonal fruits and vegetables, while handy charts cover processing times, temperatures, and recipe formulas for fast preparation.Lushly illustrated with color photographs, The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving is a classic in the making for a new generation of home cooks.

Wine. All the Time.: The Casual Guide to Confident Drinking


Marissa A. Ross - 2017
    Ross Does the thought of having to buy wine for a dinner party stress you out? Is your go-to strategy to pick the bottle with the coolest label? Are you tired of choosing pairings based on your wallet, rather than your palate? Fear not! Bon Appetit contributor and Wine. All The Time. blogger Marissa A. Ross is here to help. In this utterly unpretentious yet comprehensive guide to wine, Ross will help readers to understand the ins and outs of wine culture, from how to describe what they're drinking, to finding the best bottle for their budget, to picking the perfect red for a boyfriend's discerning parents. Told in her signature comedic voice, with personal anecdotes woven in among its lessons, Wine. All the Time. will teach readers to sip confidently, and make them laugh as they're doing it."

Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook


Mary Bell - 1994
    Now, at last, there is a book that teaches absolutely everything there is to know about using an electric food dyhydrator to dry foods at home -- and gives more than 100 foolproof recipes for scrumptious snacks and meals made from dried foods.With this extraordinary book, you can learn how to cross junk food and expensive store-bought snacks off your family's shopping list -- and add to your cupboard homemade, preservative-free fruit leathers, candied apricots, beef (and fish) jerkies, "sun" dried tomotoes, corn chips, banana chips, and so much more!Mary Bell gives specific techniques and instructions for preparing every kind of fruit (from apples to watermelon) and vegetable (from asparagus to zucchini). She also provides important shopping tips for buying an electric food dehydrator. The recipes for cooked meals (including mushroom soup, sloppy joes, pesto, and moist banana bread) will make this book a kitchen classic. And recipes for lightweight, filling trail snacks mean that the book will travel, too.Additional chapters explain to how make herb seasonings, granolas, celery powder, cosmetics, dried fruit sugars, potpourri -- and even pet treats!Food drying is an excellent way for gardeners to preserve their produce. It is a great way to make healthful snacks for the kids. It's perfect for the new wave of thrifty consumers who can't bear to spend dollars at health food stores for treats they cold make for pennies themselves. And food drying doesn't use chemicals or preservatives—so it's great for you and for the planet, too!

The Art of Baking with Natural Yeast: Breads, Pancakes, Waffles, Cinnamon Rolls and Muffins


Caleb Warnock - 2012
    Did you know commercial yeast is so foreign to our bodies that many people are allergic to it? But natural yeast converts dough into a digestible, vitamin-rich food that's free from harmful enzymes and won't spike your body's defenses. Improve your health and happiness with the delicious recipes in this groundbreaking book that will teach you to prepare and bake with natural yeast!

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats


Sally Fallon Morell - 1995
    Nutrition researcher Sally Fallon unites the wisdom of the ancients with the latest independent and accurate scientific research. The revised and updated Second Edition contains over 700 delicious recipes that will please both exacting gourmets and busy parents.

No Dig Organic Home & Garden: Grow, Cook, Use, and Store Your Harvest


Charles Dowding - 2017
    It requires an annual dressing of compost to help accelerate the improvement in soil structure and leads to higher fertility and less weeds. No dig experts Charles Dowding and Stephanie Hafferty, explain how to set up a no dig garden, including how to:- Make compost and enrich soil- Learn skills you need to sow and grow annual and perennial veg- Harvest and prepare food year round- Make natural cosmetics, cleaning products, and garden preparationsThe no dig approach works as well in small spaces as in large gardens. The authors' combined experience covers methods of growing, preparing and storing the plants you grow for many uses, and includes recipes and ideas for increasing self-reliance, saving money, living sustainably, and enjoying the pleasure of growing your own food, year round. An acknowledged expert in no dig and author of a half-dozen books on the subject, Charles' advice is distilled from 35 years of growing vegetables intensively and efficiently. Stephanie, a kitchen gardener, grows in her small, productive home garden and allotment, and creates no dig gardens for restaurants and private estates. She creates delicious seasonal recipes made from the vegetables anyone can grow. She also explains how to use common plants you can grow and forage for to make handmade preparations for the home and garden.

Put 'em Up!: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook, from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Pickling


Sherri Brooks Vinton - 2010
    Sherri Brooks Vinton includes recipes that range from the contemporary and daring — Wasabi Beans and Salsa Verde — to the very best versions of tried-and-true favorites, including Classic Crock Pickles and Orange Marmalade.