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Sunday, January 3, 2016

* FOOD BOOK OF THE MONTH! * GROWING TOMORROW (The Experiment, 2015, 304 pages, $24.95 US by Forrest Pritchard

GROWING TOMORROW (The Experiment, 2015, 304 pages, ISBN 978-1-61519-284-7, $24.95 US hard covers) is by Forrest Pritchard, author of the best-selling GAINING GROUND and a seventh-generation farmer. This book grew out of readers' letters to that book: where are these farms and what doe they do and sell? A lot of people came together for log rolling: Batali, Ruhlman, Burros, Marion Nestle and nine others (including a Deborah Madison forward). It is a farm-to-table journey in photos and recipes with behind the scenes accounts of 18 sustainable farmers on family farms who are changing the way Americans eat. Every US region is covered: the west, the southwest, the southeast, the midwest, and the northwest. Each farm is described, with material about the farm, photos, pithy quotes, web sites, addresses and contact names, hours, how to buy, etc. Not every farm is organic but all of them follow sustainable, natural practices as much as possible. There is a honeybee farm, goat dairy, berries, orchards, veggies, mushrooms, grains, and mixed. One of my fave stories is about D-Town Farm in the middle of Detroit (I saw a documentary about them at DevourFest last year): they do veggies, honey and compost. They also give employment to many of the city's blacks. At the back there is a directory and metric conversion charts. As well, there is a brief guide to blanching and canning.
Audience and level of use: those concerned about the food that we eat.
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: from D-Town Farms – tomato sauce from scratch, full-flavored collard greens; from Potomac Vegetable Farms – pear-cucumber-sesame slaw; from Nichols Farm and Orchard – fresh linguine with spring radishes and peas; from Hayton Farms Berries – raspberry beer cocktail, blueberry salsa.
The downside to this book: no overall index to tie in thoughts and stories.
The upside to this book: while there is no overall index, there is an index to the recipes.
Quality/Price Rating: 92.
 
Chimo! www.deantudor.com

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