We gardeners devote a significant percentage of winter to planning the spring garden, scouring seed catalogs, reading great books about gardens, and daydreaming about possibilities while we wait for spring. Farm City by Novella Carpenter is the perfect book for this pursuit.  

Farm City documents Carpenter’s efforts to cultivate her "squat farm" on a dead-end street in the Ghost Town section of downtown Oakland, California. Her farm is far from the rural idyll that we often imagine when thinking about locally-grown food. There’s a speakeasy across the street, toughs on the corner, and one of her neighbors lives in an indeterminate number of abandoned cars. In an example of natural entropy that any gardener will understand (and perhaps even envy,) Carpenter’s farm quickly expands to match her ambition. Taking over the vacant and undeveloped lot next door, she and her partner install raised beds made from scrap lumber, and gradually construct habitats for their livestock, including bees, poultry, rabbits, and (eventually) pigs.

This is not a book about an over-sized vegetable garden. There’s an added dimension here, since Carpenter’s farm has fauna as well as flora, and she unabashedly raises her livestock for meat. This effort provides some of the highlights of the book as Carpenter endeavors to live off her produce exclusively for a month, struggles to find local scraps in bulk to feed the pigs, and bonds with the owner of a local restaurant as she learns to make salami and prosciutto.

This is an epic adventure undertaken on a local scale, and provides a remarkable lens through which to view our relationship with food in general and agricultural produce in particular. Brighten your winter with Farm City by Novella Carpenter.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Oh, the weather outside is frightful…

… but the kitchen smells delightful! This time of year calls for baked goods, either for the family or a party. Sometimes I make old favorites, and sometimes I experiment with cookbooks like these:

1.  A Baker’s Field Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies by Dede Wilson: This spiral-bound hardback offers dozens of variations on the classic Toll House cookie. Each recipe has a picture and notes about the cookie’s history or tricks for a perfect batch. I chuckled over the "lifespan," since homemade cookies never last long in my house. 

Highlights: Holy Smokes Heavenly Chip and Cranberry Cookies, and Ginger Chip Brown Sugar Shortbread Fingers.

 2. Chocolate & Vanilla by Gale Gand, with Lisa Weiss: This little two-sided, "flip" book devotes one half to each of the title ingredients. After all, each tastes better with the other. This slim volume offers easy-to-follow recipes with a fairly high "wow" factor.

Highlights: Chocolate-almond Upside-down Cake, and Vanilla-scented Peach Tarte Tatin

3. Cookies for Christmas by Jennifer Darling: This Better Homes & Gardens edition celebrates the family connection of baking for the holiday, with a section devoted to "old world" favorites. The author includes lots of pretty items that look great on a buffet or on a gift tray. Even if mine didn’t look quite as nice, they were still tasty.

Highlights: Patterns for gingerbread houses, old fashioned fig cookies (very yummy!), and chocolate reindeer.

4. Joy of Cooking: All About Cookies by Irma Rombauer: This classic book divides its fairly standard recipes according to baking technique: drop, bar, rolled, filled, etc. It also includes icing and decorating information. Lots of recipes, with lots of pictures

Highlights: Brandy Snaps, Fourteen in one (master recipe), and rugelach. 

5. Kids Cookies: Scrumptious Recipes for Bakers ages 9 – 13 by Susan Katzman: A colorful edition geared toward those learning how to bake, this book concentrates on the classics. It also starts with a good "how to" section, about ingredients and basic techniques.

Highlights: Double-Peanut Peanut Butter cookies and Luscious Lemon Squares

So, what to make for dinner while busy baking up a storm? I love soups and stews this time of year. A big pot of soup is economical and delicious. In Soup Makes the Meal by Ken Haedrich, each "chapter" offer a soup, a bread, and a salad — genius!

Wishing you happy, healthy, and tasty holidays!

Kristen Blount – Administration Office

I loved The Farm Chicks in the Kitchen so much that I renewed it twice — and even though I had it for nine weeks, I’ll be checking it out again in the future! Serena Thompson and Teri Edwards are friends and entrepreneurs. A number of years ago, they started an annual antiques fair and then produced a line of products, eventually leading them to write for Country Living magazine Now they have published their first book The Farm Chicks in the Kitchen, which tells their story while offering recipes and projects to make. I am already waiting for their next book to come out (and I hope it’s going to be soon).

The recipes and craft projects are easy to make yourself, and you don’t have to go out and buy hard-to-find ingredients. I made the Cherry Breakfast Swirl, and had most of the ingredients in my pantry already. It was simple to put together, and only took about 30 minutes to bake. It was so delicious that I took the ingredients and recipe with me on vacation when I had to make breakfast for ten of us.

I’d recommend this title to anyone who loves recipes, craft projects, or just enjoys reading about them. Look at The Farm Chicks online when you get a chance, but make sure to check out The Farm Chicks in the Kitchen, too.

Michele Happel – Miller Branch

I adore being in the kitchen. Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved the smells of freshly baked bread, cookies, or cakes coming out of the oven. Special memories are attached to the kitchen for me — so when I saw A Homemade Life reviewed online, I had to put myself on reserve for it. Recipes like Jimmy’s Pink Cookies, Tarte Tatin (one of Julia Child’s creations), and Dutch Baby Pancakes with Lemon and Sugar all made my mouth water so much that I couldn’t stand it.

Molly Wizenberg’s stories share the setting of a kitchen. When her father died of cancer, family and friends told her to take it easy on herself, but she couldn’t go back to her life in Seattle. Instead, she journeyed to Paris, a place which brought back great memories of a trip she and her father had taken when she was much younger. Instead of writing her dissertation for graduate school, though, she found herself tasting cheeses and chocolate, and reading cookbooks until dusk. She finally realized her heart was in food and the kitchen, not in her studies.

As something to pass the time, Molly started her blog Orangette, and shortly had an international following. Every week people logged on to find out what Molly was reading, eating, cooking, and thinking, until one reader found himself infatuated with her. Their emails eventually turned into a long-distance romance — he in New York, and she in Seattle.

The writing is wonderful, and I can’t wait to try the recipes, but Molly also expresses great love for her new husband. “I used to think I had a good dowry. I can make a nice meatball and bake a fine chocolate cake. I can find my way without a map around Paris, Seattle, and Oklahoma City… But Brandon brought with him more than I could have ever thought to want… Sometimes when I see him across the room, I can hardly believe that I get to be his wife.”

Maybe we should all try the Winning Hearts and Minds Cake, or Our Wedding Cake. It sounds like a keeper.

Michele Happel – Miller Branch

I don’t usually read memoirs, especially ones about recovery. I don’t watch docudramas about medical or emotional trauma either. I tend to become horrified and depressed, instead of edified and entertained. However, Cooking & Screaming: Finding My Own Recipe for Recovery found its way onto my reading stack…I think it was a combination of the clever title and bold cover. This fascinating and honest book might even have converted me into reading other memoirs (but not watching them).

Just before graduating from UC Berkeley at age 21, author Adrienne Kane suffered a major stroke. In this memoir, Kane recounts the frustrations of physical therapy and her gradual reintroduction to independence. As she takes the reader through her road to recovery, she mixes family anecdotes, California atmosphere, and medical prognoses into an upbeat concoction, all about a strong-willed woman facing life’s challenges.

Each chapter begins with a recipe, which relates somehow to the chapter’s theme. The first chapter opens with a pasta and zucchini dish (which I have copied to try myself) from Kane’s college days. Throughout the book, recipes vary in complexity from basic spaghetti sauce to a duck dinner made in memory of Julia Child. It was fascinating to see how each recipe reflected an important chapter in the author’s recovery.

Kane discovers her passion for food and feeding people as she copes with her disabilities. Cooking and sharing her thoughts about food come to define her vocation, almost by accident. This was a delightful read…the author’s voice is highly personal, the topic astounding on many levels, and the meals mouthwatering-ly inspiring.

Kristen Blount – Administration Office

With a title like this one, how could I resist picking up the book? I’m glad I did. In some ways, The Book of Unholy Mischief by Elle Newmark reminded me of The Da Vinci Code and The Rule of Four. However, I found Newmark’s book much more lighthearted and entertaining, although not quite as spine-tingling.

The book takes the reader on a romp through Renaissance Venice via the Doge’s kitchen. Luciano is a street kid, scrounging to make a living by rummaging through trash piles and stealing in the Rialto, Venice’s famed marketplace. One day as he’s lifting a pomegranate, he is caught by a chef. Instead of turning him over to the authorities, the chef makes Luciano his apprentice, and so the intrigue begins as Luciano’s master is more than he first appears.

Extremely practical Luciano tells the story, and the author maintains a fairly strict point of view. Fortunately, our young cook has an insatiable curiosity and loves to spy. The Doge (who is suffering from syphilis) is searching for a book that is supposed to contain the recipe for immortality — and he’s willing to kill for it. Many other influential people, including the Borgia Pope, also express an interest in the book for other reasons. As Luciano puzzles over what and where the book might be, we get a glimpse of political maneuvering that would put Machiavelli to shame.

Newmark does a credible job of building suspense and tying up her loose ends, but the true wonder of this first novel comes from the sensory overload of Venice’s docks. We can almost hear the polyglot of languages, smell the spices and fresh produce, and see the wonders of the world. Newmark makes Venice, at the height of its power as the world’s crossroads, a character in its own right. And in the end, I was reminded that while immortality may not be contained in a book, a certain kind of magic can happen in a kitchen.

Kristen Blount – Administration Office