On our Bookshelf…
The Beginner’s Guide to Preserving Food at Home
By Janet Chadwick
(Storey Publishing, 231 pages, $15)
In its third edition, The Beginner’s Guide to Preserving Food at Home refines its easy-to-follow directions and plentiful diagrams for canning, freezing, drying, brining, and root cellaring your favorite fruits, herbs, and vegetables. The new edition features expanded recipes: our favorites were the quick reference table for cream soups, how to dry herbs, and how to make freezer meatballs. Plus, there’s a helpful troubleshooting chapter in a question-and-answer format that clears up dilemmas such as what foods are best not blanched before the freezing process.
Beginners can read by chapter, while more advanced readers can use the book’s index for quick reference. With Chadwick as your guide, storing the season’s harvest has never been easier.
–Rachel Coussens
Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager
By Langdon Cook
(The Mountaineers Books/Skipstone, 224 pages, $27)
Seattle writer, blogger, and Northwest Palate contributor (“Huckleberry Love,” July/August 2009), Langdon Cook forages Northwest fare—from squid and oysters, to mushrooms and herbs—and turns them into gourmet dishes. His wife squirms at the sight of clams in her kitchen, but eventually gets comfortable with the idea, warming to the idea of free fiddleheads and other foods.
Web-savvy surfers may have chanced upon Cook’s blog of the same title. With posts dating back to January 2008 and more than 200 entries during the last two years, Cook has well documented many a foraging adventure, and he writes in an entertaining and enlightening narrative style.
The book and the blog occasionally overlap; for example, the first chapter (labeled “Honey Get the Gun”) is also the title of Cook’s first blog post. As you read the book, go online and use the blog’s search option to locate additional recipes and information about specific topics or ingredients. Together the two are sure to inspire foraging expeditions of your own.
–Rachel Coussens
