In Review: The Hawaii Farmers Market Cookbook

The Hawaii Farmers Market Cookbook
by Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation
Watermark Publishing, 2010

The first volume in this 2-volume set, "Fresh Island Products from A to Z" provides complete descriptions of products, explains what to look for when purchasing, and how to prepare your finds. Full-color photographs help identify "mystery fruits" and the unprocessed form of foods market visitors may have previously only encountered chopped and cooked.

Volume 2: The Chefs' Guide to Fresh Island Foods contains more than 75 great recipes by Island culinary stars.

The Hawaii Farmers Market Cookbook
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In Review: The Abundant Community

The Abundant Community
Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods
by John McKnight and Peter Block
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2010

This book reminds us that a neighborhood that can raise a child, provide security, sustain our health, secure our income, and care for our vulnerable people is within the power of our community.

In The Abundant Community, authors John McKnight and Peter Block reveal the invisible but immeasurable impact consumerism has had on our families and communities.

We are besieged by messages from consumer society telling us that we are insufficient, that we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside the community. We outsource our health care, child care, relationships, recreation, our safety, and our satisfaction. We are trained to become consumers and clients, not citizens and neighbors.

McKnight and Block take a thoughtful look at how this situation came about, what maintains it, and the crippling effect it has had on our families, our communities, and our environment.

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Good Old Books: Cheerleading and Marching Bands

Cheerleading and Marching Bands
by Newt Loken and Otis Dypwick
A.S. Barnes & Co., 1945

Mass cheering is as old as the history of armed combat. Way back in ancient times throngs of excited people lined the route of march of returning victorious warriors to cheer their conquests.

The modern high school and college phase of cheering led by a designated individual was ushered in at the University of Minnesota in 1898.

Mass cheering is as old as the history of armed combat. Way back in ancient times throngs of excited people lined the route of march of returning victorious warriors to cheer their conquests.

The modern high school and college phase of cheering led by a designated individual was ushered in at the University of Minnesota in 1898.

Johnny Campbell, an undergraduate, was selected yell marshall in that year. He stood before a football assemblage and directed it in the recitation of 'Rah-Rah-Rah...... Ski-u-Mah... Minne-so-ta!"

Although more than 30,000 high schools and colleges in the United States now engage in group vocal expression under the direction of cheerleaders, no one has ever prepared and published an authoritative text on the subject, one designed to instruct in detail on fundamentals and to raise the national standard of excellence.

It is to this end we present Cheerleading as a member of the Barnes Sports Library.

-- from the Introduction

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Atomic Farmgirl

That time of year the wheat fields were almost a lime green, the heads threatening every day to turn yellow. The pea fields stretched for acres, with plants holding skinny, green pods not yet ready for me to pick. When they were ready, my mom always gave me the top of the double boiler to fill with fresh peas. We ate our fill, dinner after dinner, coated with Blue bonnet margarine, not ever making a dent in the fields that surrounded the house.

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The Shallows

We want to be interrupted, because each interruption brings us a valuable piece of information...

And so we ask the Internet to keep interrupting us, in ever more and different ways. We willingly accept the loss of concentration and focus, the division of our attention and the fragmentation of our thoughts, in return for the wealth of compelling or at least diverting information we receive. Tuning out is not an option many of us would consider.


The Shallows
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Science Writing

In Review: Animating Space

Animating Space From Mickey to WALL-E
by J.P. Telotte
The University Press of Kentucky, 2010

Animators work within a strictly defined, limited space that requires difficult artistic decisions. The blank frame presents a dilemma for all animators, and the decision of what to include and leave out raises important questions about artistry, authorship, and cultural influence.

Renowned scholar J. P. Telotte explores how animation has confronted the blank template, and how responses to that confrontation have changed.

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The Winter Harvest Handbook

The Winter Harvest Handbook
Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses
by Eliot Coleman
Chelsea Green, 2009

If anyone could figure out how to grow lettuce in Maine in the middle of winter, it would be Elliot Coleman. America's inimitable master gardener, he has been pushing the boundaries of vegetable cultivation for decades and his Four Seasons Farm is a showcase for what can be accomplished with Yankee ingenuity and meticulous attention to detail, not to mention some back-breaking labor.

"Attention to detail is the major secret to success in any endeavor," Coleman writes. Experience, determination and an undying enthusiam are welcome partners.

There are three steps to a successful winter harvest, according to Coleman:

1) Cold-hardy vegetables
2) Succession planting
3) Protected cultivation

Written primarily for commercial growers interested in growing for market in the winter months, this book offers a wealth of information about growing crops year-round in unheated greenhouses or beneath row covers. This doesn't include growing tomatoes in the dead of winter, but there are more than 30 green and root vegetables like carrots, onions, celery and kohlrabi that will do fine.

Coleman provides lists of specific seeds for vegetables that grow under winter conditions in his greenhouse and offers tips on how to help them make it through to harvest.

Coleman's methods are not simple or easy, but he does it with minimal use of fossil fuels and the tasty, nutritious results must be well worth the effort.

The Winter Harvest Handbook
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