The Perennial Kitchen

Recipes and resources connect thoughtfully grown, gathered, and prepared ingredients to a healthy future--for food, farming, and humankind Knowing how and where food is grown can add depth and richness to a dish, whether a meal of slow-roasted short ribs on creamy polenta, a steaming bowl of spicy Hmong soup, or a triple ginger rye cake, kissed with maple sugar, honey, and sorghum. Here James Beard Award-winning author Beth Dooley provides the context of food's origins, along with delicious recipes, nutrition information, and tips for smart sourcing. More than a farm-to-table cookbook, The Perennial Kitchen expands the definition of "local food" to embrace regenerative agriculture, the method of growing small and large crops with ecological services. These farming methods, grounded in a land ethic, remediate the environmental damage caused by the monocropping of corn and soybeans. In this thoughtful collection the home cook will find both recipes and insights into artisan grains, nuts, fruits, and vegetables that are delicious and healthy--and also help retain topsoil, sequester carbon, and return nutrients to the soil. Here are crops that enhance our soil, nurture pollinators and song birds, rebuild rural economies, protect our water, and grow plentifully without toxic chemicals. These ingredients are as good for the planet as they are on our plates. Dooley explains how to stock the pantry with artisan grains, heritage dry beans, fresh flour, healthy oils, and natural sweeteners. She offers pointers on working with grass-fed beef and pastured pork and describes how to turn leftovers into tempting soups and stews. She makes the most of each season's bounty, from fresh garlic scape pesto to roasted root vegetable hummus. Here we learn how best to use nature's "fast foods," the quick-cooking egg and ever-reliable chicken; how to work with alternative flours, as in gingerbread with rye or focaccia with Kernza®; and how to make plant-forward, nutritious vegan and vegetarian fare. Among other sweet pleasures, Dooley shares the closely held secret recipe from the University of Minnesota's student association for the best apple pie. Woven throughout the recipes is the most recent research on nutrition, along with a guide to sources and information that cuts through the noise and confusion of today's food labels and trends. Beth Dooley looks back into ingredients' healthy beginnings and forward to the healthy future they promise. At the center of it all is the cook, linking into the regenerative and resilient food chain with every carefully sourced, thoughtfully prepared, and delectable dish.

Author and herbalist Brittany Wood Nickerson understands that food is our most powerful medicine. In Recipes from the Herbalist’s Kitchen she reveals how the kitchen can be a place of true awakening for the senses and spirit, as well as deep nourishment for the body. With in-depth profiles of favorite culinary herbs such as dill, sage, basil, and mint, Nickerson offers fascinating insights into the healing properties of each herb and then shares 110 original recipes for scrumptious snacks, entrées, drinks, and desserts that are specially designed to meet the body’s needs for comfort, nourishment, energy, and support through seasonal changes. Foreword INDIES Gold Award Winner IACP Cookbook Awards Finalist

Personal and simple, earthy and warm—recipes and stories from the Steger Wilderness Center in Minnesota’s north woods The Steger Homestead Kitchen is an inspiring and down-to-earth collection of meals and memories gathered at the Homestead, the home of the Arctic explorer and environmental activist Will Steger, located in the north woods near Ely, Minnesota. Founded in 1988, the Steger Wilderness Center was established to model viable carbon-neutral solutions, teach ecological stewardship, and address climate change. In her role as the Homestead’s chef, Will’s niece Rita Mae creates delicious and hearty meals that become a cornerstone experience for visitors from all over the world, nourishing them as they learn and share their visions for a healthy and abundant future. Now, with this new book, home chefs can make Rita Mae’s simple, hearty meals to share around their own homestead tables. Interwoven with dozens of mouth-watering recipes—for generous breakfasts (Almond Berry Griddlecakes), warming lunches (Northwoods Mushroom Wild Rice Soup), elegant dinners (Spatchcock Chicken with Blueberry Maple Glaze), desserts (Very Carrot Cake), and snacks (Steger Wilderness Bars)—are Will Steger’s exhilarating stories of epic adventures exploring the Earth’s most remote and endangered regions. The Steger Homestead Kitchen opens up the Wilderness Center’s hospitality, its heart and hearth, providing the practical advice and inspiration to cook up a good life in harmony with nature.

2018 James Beard Award Winner: Best American Cookbook Named one of the Best Cookbooks of 2017 by NPR, The Village Voice, Smithsonian Magazine, UPROXX, New York Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Mpls. St. PaulMagazine and others Here is real food—our indigenous American fruits and vegetables, the wild and foraged ingredients, game and fish. Locally sourced, seasonal, “clean” ingredients and nose-to-tail cooking are nothing new to Sean Sherman, the Oglala Lakota chef and founder of The Sioux Chef. In his breakout book, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, Sherman shares his approach to creating boldly seasoned foods that are vibrant, healthful, at once elegant and easy. Sherman dispels outdated notions of Native American fare—no fry bread or Indian tacos here—and no European staples such as wheat flour, dairy products, sugar, and domestic pork and beef. The Sioux Chef’s healthful plates embrace venison and rabbit, river and lake trout, duck and quail, wild turkey, blueberries, sage, sumac, timpsula or wild turnip, plums, purslane, and abundant wildflowers. Contemporary and authentic, his dishes feature cedar braised bison, griddled wild rice cakes, amaranth crackers with smoked white bean paste, three sisters salad, deviled duck eggs, smoked turkey soup, dried meats, roasted corn sorbet, and hazelnut–maple bites. The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen is a rich education and a delectable introduction to modern indigenous cuisine of the Dakota and Minnesota territories, with a vision and approach to food that travels well beyond those borders.

Experienced in 65 countries, the author offers a unique perspective on the world. Currently a resident in central Africa, "The Perennial Wanderer" is his contribution to readers' broader view of the world, particularly since the terrible events of 9-11.

Many authors, in satisfying the reading public's insatiable need for escapist literature, invest much time and energy. Don't get me wrong - I read that literature all the time myself. Why not? It is usually entertaining, if not suspenseful. In The Perennial Wanderer, however, it is my intent to demonstrate that life is indeed stranger than fiction, and I, not unlike the escapist writers, have invested much time and energy in bringing these life experiences to the reader. After working in so many countries - including war torn and conflictive countries such as Viet Nam, Colombia, Per, Mozambique, Sudan and El Salvador - I have seen more than my share of violence, murder, mayhem, public corruption and chicanery. And none of my observations have taken place as a military man ... my military experience, by the way, was in the peacetime Air Force in the beautiful Hawaiian Islands. About a decade ago - at the time of the FMLN communist rebel final offensive in El Salvador, at which time I was taken hostage - some friends in the State Department Mobile Security Team observed that Clint Eastwood should star in a movie about me. I do not think that Mr. Eastwood would now be interested. Besides, as noted: Life really is stranger than fiction.

The first canning manual and cookbook authored by Michelin-starred chef and Vie restaurant owner Paul Virant, featuring more than 100 recipes Pairing science with art, Paul Virant presents expert preserving techniques, sophisticated recipes, and seasonal menus inspired by the award-winning fare at his restaurant, Vie, in Western Springs, Illinois. Imaginative tangy jams, brandied fruits, zesty relishes, cured meats, and sweet and savory conserves are the focus of the first half of this book, while seasonal menus pairing these preserves with everything from salads and cocktails to poached fish and braised meat compose the second. Brandied Cherries used in Cherry Clafoutis, or as a garnish for the Beer-Jam Manhattan, are a sweet reminder of the summer harvest. And the Chicken Fried Steak with Smoked Spring Onion Relish anticipates warmer days when you’re still deep in winter. Alongside recipes and menus, Virant draws on his extensive technical knowledge and experience to provide detailed and comprehensive guidelines for safe canning practices, testing pH, pressure canning, water bath processing, and storing. But no matter how precise the science, Virant never forgets the art in each handcrafted preserve and thoughtfully developed recipe. His unique approach re-imagines seasonal eating by harmonizing opposite or unusual partnerships: the brightness of summer fruit may be tempered with the earthiness of meats and winter produce, or the delicacy of spring vegetables might be enriched by the robust herbs and spices more typical of fall. The Preservation Kitchen not only demonstrates and instructs, it encourages and explores the limitless possibilities of capturing the seasons in a jar.

Go back to the basics in the kitchen and rediscover the joy of cooking with simple tools and fresh local and seasonal ingredients. A complete guide to the essentials of home cooking from the popular cooking school at Maine's Salt Water Farm. Good cooking has nothing to do with fancy equipment, complicated recipes, or trendy, hard-to-find ingredients. The fundamentals are really quite simple: it's about instinct, technique, and freshness. Annemarie Ahearn, dubbed by Food & Wine Magazine as someone "changing the way America eats," believes that developing these essential skills can lead to a greater sense of confidence and fulfillment in the kitchen. Her credo: 1) Grow at least some of your own food to establish a deeper connection with the earth that provides your nutrition, 2) Be familiar with a range of cooking techniques so you can develop flexibility and intuition in the kitchen, and 3) Master the age-old cooking skills that will serve you your whole lifetime--cooking in cast iron, sharpening knives, and using a mortar and pestle. With these classic skills under your belt, and with 75 tried-and-true seasonal recipes, you'll be on your way to putting consistently delicious, satisfying meals on the table every day while you learn to fall in love with the process.