The Gardener's Table: A Guide to Natural Vegetable Growing and Cooking
Not for the faint-hearted,The Gardener's Tablerequires a commitment to vegetables that starts in an ecologically balanced garden and then proceeds to the table as the fruits of one's labor. Committed cooks who want to understand how their kitchen can interact with the seasons will find that this guide's most compelling revelation is the ancient, long-forgotten understanding that flavor starts in the soil. Opening chapters explain in detail composting, seasonal variation, and ecologically responsible fertilizing and planting methods, while recipe sidebars and pantry suggestions remind the reader that, yes, this is a cookbook too--albeit one whose primary focus is to teach the cook how to be a gardener as well. Once upon a time, these two skills were inextricably related, but all an enlightened cook of today need remember is that if one begins with the best ingredients, 90 percent of the flavor has already been achieved.--Sumi Hahn Almquist