Monday, September 29, 2014

Now Cooking with Brazilian Barbecue & Beyond

Bem vindo — welcome to the Brazilian table, filled with tropical açai, banana, and coconut; tasty snacks like pão de queijo (cheesy dough balls); new-style twists on traditional favorites like the meat-and-bean stew feijoada and the shrimp and lobster curry moqueca, plus other unique culinary delights.

From fruit-packed breakfasts to classic barbecue, cachaça-based cocktails, colorful sides, and luscious desserts, this cookbook presents modern Brazilian food as you've never seen it before.

by David Ponte, et al
Sterling Epicure, 2014
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Saturday, September 13, 2014

Farm and Garden Picks: Apples of Uncommon Character


While supermarkets limit their offerings to a few waxy options, apple trees with lives spanning human generations are producing characterful varieties—and now they are in the midst of a rediscovery. From heirlooms to new designer breeds, a delicious diversity of apples is out there for the eating.

With more than 150 art-quality color photographs, Apples of Uncommon Character shows us the fruit in all its glory.

Rowan Jacobsen collected specimens both common and rare from all over North America, selecting 120 to feature, including the best varieties for eating, baking, and hard-cider making. Each is accompanied by a photograph, history, lore, and a list of characteristics.

Heirlooms, Modern Classics, and Little-Known Wonders
by Rowan Jacobsen
Bloomsbury USA, 2014
Farm and Garden Books
Growth Spurts
Home Grown
Outrider Reading Group

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Exploring the Nature of... The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon

September 1, 2014 marked the centenary of one of the best-documented extinctions in history—the demise of the Passenger Pigeon. From being the commonest bird on the planet 50 years earlier, the species became extinct when Martha, the last of her kind, died at the Cincinnati Zoo.

This book marks the centenary of that tragic event. Built around the framework of a visit to Cincinnati and the pigeon’s former haunts in North America's east coast, by author Mark Avery, it tells the tale of the pigeon, and of Martha, and explores the largely untold story of the ecological annihilation of this part of America in the years between the end of the US Civil War and 1900—an unprecedented loss of natural beauty and richness, as the prairies were ploughed, swiftly to be replaced by a dustbowl, while the population of Bison plummeted from around 30 million to just 1,000, the victim of habitat destruction and indiscriminate slaughter.

The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and Its Relevance Today 
by Mark Avery
University Of Chicago Press, 2013

The Nature Pages
Nature Writing and Natural Histories
Book Notes Wild
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Saturday, September 6, 2014

Book Stall Review: The Yew Tree

Claudius, the 1st century Roman Emperor, believed that the juices of the yew tree could be used as an antidote for snake venom. Germans of the Middle Ages were conivinced that yew pitch mixed with butter could cure tuberculosis.

Members of the Cowlitz tribe of Native Americans used to crush yew needles into a paste to put on wounds. These are just a few of the dozens of historic uses recorded in The Yew Tree, an impressive biography of the species written by an Oregon treeplanter, Hal Hartzell, Jr.

A Thousand Whispers
by Hal Hartzell, Jr
Hulogosi Books, 1991

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Friday, August 29, 2014

Exploring the Nature of... Paradise

When Zen teacher Karen Maezen Miller and her family land in a house with a hundred-year-old Japanese garden, she uses the paradise in her backyard to glean the living wisdom of our natural world. Through her eyes, rocks convey faith, ponds preach stillness, flowers give love, and leaves express the effortless ease of letting go.

The book welcomes readers into the garden for Zen lessons in fearlessness, forgiveness, presence, acceptance, and contentment.

Lessons from a Zen Garden
by Karen Maezen Miller
New World Library, 2014
Nature Writing and Natural Histories
Farm and Garden Books
Book Notes Wild
Outrider Reading Group

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Review: Timber Framing for the Rest of Us

This book describes and explains the basic principles of framing a structure with heavy timbers using "non-traditional" methods such as metal fasteners like truss plates, screws, bolts and pole barn nails -- about which little has been previously published.

"Traditional" timber framers employed wood-on-wood joinery using mortise-and-tenon, scarf and rabbet joints to create wonderfully strong and aesthetically pleasing buildings.

As this guide points out, the use of metal fasteners can make timber framing more accessible to farmers and owner-builders without sacrificing strength or beauty.

A Guide to Contemporary Post and Beam Construction
by Rob Roy
New Society Publishers, 2004.

continued in The Book Stall

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Thursday, August 7, 2014

Drink the Harvest

A New Guide To...
Making and Preserving Juices, Wines, Meads, Teas, and Ciders.

Preserving the harvest doesn't have to stop with jam and pickles. Many fruits, vegetables, and herbs can be made into delicious beverages to drink fresh or preserve for later -- a healthy and inexpensive alternative to store-bought drinks.

Drink the Harvest shows you how to create juices, ciders, wines, meads, teas, and syrups to savor any time of year.

Making and Preserving Juices, Wines, Meads, Teas, and Ciders
by Nan K. Chace and DeNeice C. Guest
Storey Publishing, 2014
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