Recipe: Jamie Oliver's Traditional English Cornish Pasties with Beef, Onion, Potatoes, and Carrots

These classic-style British meat hand pies (with updated ingredients) from Jamie's Great Britain are perfect cold weather comfort food—portable, filling, and they freeze beautifully.

Jamie Oliver's Great Britain is a neat cookbook. Laid out like Jamie's America, it's a 400-page hardcover packed with color photos of people, places, and mouthwatering food, along with commentary and interesting tidbits. I've already spent a couple of hours just leisurely reading through it.

The chapters range from Breakfast, Pub Grub, and New British Classics to Afternoon Tea, Pies and Puddings, and Sunday Lunch. There's a section on wild food that has me thinking about cooking rabbit—either the Honey-Roasted Lemon Rabbit or the 12 Hour (!) Rabbit Bolognese—for the first time ever (my mother won't believe I just said that). The short Condiments chapter at the end tells you how to make things like Curried Mayonnaise, A Quick English Mustard in Seconds, eight kinds of flavored vinegar, and The Best Piccalilli.

Some of the recipes I've bookmarked include Bubble and Squeak (a quintessential classic that dates to the early 1800s), Minted Zucchini Soup, Quick Fresh Tomato Soup with Little Cheddar Soliders, Epic Roast Chicken Salad with Golden Croutons, Shredded Rainbow Salad (you just throw everything into the food processor), Kate and Wills's Wedding Pie with Beef and Beer Filling, Guinness Lamb Shanks, Speedy Butter Beans with Tomatoes and Swiss Chard or Cabbage, Sour Cranberry Bakewell Tart, and Rainbow Jam Tarts.

Recipe below. . .

Book Review: The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry

And a recipe for Midnight Cry Mocha Brownies from the book

Even though I'm not there physically all the time, I want them to have something that says, I'm out here. I'm okay. I love you. I want them to bite into a cookie, and think of me, and smile. Food is love. Food has a power. I knew it in my mind, but now I know it in my heart. —Ginny Selvaggio in The Kitchen Daughter

The heroine in Jael McHenry's debut novel, The Kitchen Daughter, is Ginny Selvaggio, a young woman with Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. Ginny's long time special interest? Cooking.

The process of following a recipe—its rhythm, its order, its predictable result—is calming to her, so when she finds herself overwhelmed, embarrassed, or uncomfortable she copes by turning to food, either in the kitchen or in her mind.

More below. . .

Book Recommendations: Gifts Cooks Love, Eating Local: The Cookbook Inspired by America's Farmers, & More

Enter to win a copy of Gifts Cooks Love: Recipes for Giving!

If you've been reading this blog for very long, you know that I'm a huge fan of giving books, especially cookbooks, as gifts. They're fun, informative, inexpensive, and—slow, spine-breaking death by loving overuse aside—will last nearly forever.

So what's the only gift better than that? One that lasts a very short time because it's edible.

Speaking of gifts and cookbooks, in case I don't get around to writing more about them anytime soon, In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite: 150 Recipes and Stories About the Food You Love ($18.15) by New York Times columnist Melissa Clark and Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home ($17.50) by Nigella Lawson are wonderful—especially if you like reading about food as much as cooking and eating it. They both make me laugh out loud each time I pick them up. Nigella's oversized chocolate chip cookies received rave reviews (you know we love big cookies around here), and Melissa's Garlic and Thyme-Roasted Chicken with Crispy Drippings Croutons is awesome.

I realize I'm a little late suggesting Gifts Cooks Love: Recipes for Giving in time for this holiday season, but it seems like things have been even crazier than usual around here lately. And besides, you know I rarely do anything on time—although I did actually manage to get my garlic in the ground on schedule this year for a change. Woohoo!

Anyway, Gifts Cooks Love: Recipes for Giving (hardcover; 192 pages; full color; cover price $25, available for $16.50 at amazon) is the latest book from national kitchenware retailer Sur La Table (Can you believe I've never been in one of their stores? I'm so deprived.) and the fourteenth cookbook for co-author Diane Morgan. Previous Sur La Table titles include Things Cooks Love: Implements, Ingredients, Recipes (hardcover; 352 pages; full color; cover price $35; currently in the bargain section at amazon for $14.00) and Tips Cooks Love: Over 500 Tips, Techniques, and Shortcuts that Will Make You a Better Cook! $10.20 (paperback; 384 pages), a perfect little stocking stuffer or host/hostess gift, especially for a budding cook.

Book Review and Giveaway: Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

I inadvertently became interested in tropical plants because that's what the man at the Union Square Green Market sold me. I used to believe that sentence, but now I know better. Now I know that it was meant to be. Here's how it happened.

And so begins Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire, the exotic debut novel by Margot Berwin.

I was about two-thirds of the way through the book when I finally figured out what it reminded me of: one of my crazy, technicolor dreams. You know, the kind filled with fantastical situations and outlandish characters where you blink awake thinking, How in the world did my brain come up with that?

The seed of a dream usually comes from reality—something that happened during the day, a childhood memory, a thought you had while drifting off to sleep. Then, helped along with a hefty dose of superfertilizer known as your subconscious, what grows, at least in my case, is often something along the lines of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Or if you're awake and have the imagination of Margot Berwin, that little seed of reality turns into a seductive adventure of a book. Says Berwin:

Recipe: Easy All Natural Homemade Barbecue Sauce

And a great new book: America's Best BBQ!

Grilled pork ribs slathered with homemade BBQ Sauce

"What do you feel like having for dinner?" I asked Joe as he sat down to his usual breakfast of organic peanut butter and apricot jam on thick slices of homemade Farmhouse White Sandwich Bread and a big glass of fresh Jersey milk courtesy of a cow down the road.

Unless we've already planned that night's dinner the day before (a rarity around here), we need to decide fairly early what we're going to have, since chances are good any meat portion of a meal is frozen.

Sometimes one of us already has an idea of what we want, sometimes we both have the same idea, and sometimes neither of us has a clue and hopes the other person will come up with something brilliant.

After a minute he said, "Isn't there still a slab of pork ribs in the freezer?"

"Yes! And I'll make barbecue sauce!"

Book Review - Flyaway: How a Wild Bird Rehabber Sought Adventure and Found Her Wings by Suzie Gilbert

Yesterday morning two Amish carpenters, a young Amish apprentice, a hunky farmguy, and a little old diesel tractor demolished our sagging haybarn, hauled off the debris, and began constructing a new one.

Last week, while out buying building materials for the new haybarn at Lowe's, I spied a butter yellow, retro style two-seat glider that matches the chair I scored there last summer for ten bucks. I immediately dragged the glider into the aisle, plunked myself down, and waited for Joe to come around the corner, see how perfect I looked sitting in it, and loudly exclaim that of course we had to buy it.

"No," he said, then turned to the smiling saleslady and explained, "She never sits down."

"But it matches my chair!"

He was kind enough to refrain from pointing out that I never actually sit in my chair.

I love books, and reading is one of my favorite things to do. I also love living on a farm. Unfortunately these two things do not go very well together, and I rarely have time to read, especially during the spring, when it always feels like there are 3,000 more urgent things to be done. Thank goodness for the invention of audio books, or I'm sure I would have keeled over from literature withdrawal years ago.

In order to keep myself from going any crazier than I already am, I also recently decided that I need to eliminate as many deadlines from my life as possible.

More below. . .

Book Review: Keeping the Feast by Paula Butturini

Win an Advance Copy!

In conjunction with this review, Paula graciously shared one of her favorite cold weather recipes with me. You'll find her recipe for Zuppa di Fagioli/Italian White Bean Soup, along with my thick and hearty version (this soup is made for improvising!) here.

When Lisa at TLC Book Tours asked if I'd be interested in 'reviewing another book that has food a central theme' for an upcoming tour (I was part of last year's TLC book tour for The Laws of Harmony, written by one of my favorite novelists, Judith Ryan Hendricks), I naturally said yes.

I started reading Paula Butturini's memoir, Keeping the Feast, which will be released on February 18th, while sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a doctor's office waiting room while a noisy health news show reverberated off the walls. I made it to the third sentence.

A few days later, cozied up under a heavy layer of flannel sheets and quilts after being knocked down by the flu, I turned on my soothing little bedside stained glass lamp and once again started to read. Much better. The food showed up in the fourth sentence and never left.

The morning before moving day, I took a notebook instead of a shopping bag to the Campo dei Fiori, and wrote down everything on offer at one of the more modest stands in the square. A truck farmer named Domenico presided over that stand, and much of what he sold he grew himself.

On that sunny August morning, Domenico was selling fat, round heads of soft Bibb lettuce and wild-looking heads of curly endive. He had crates of Romaine lettuce, whose elongated heads form the base of many salads, and tight little knobs of red racicchio, to add color. He had fistfuls of wild arugula, which the Romans call rughetta and use to add a peppery bite to a meal. He had foot-long bunches of Swiss chard, tiny new shoots of broccoli rabe, bunches of slim scallions. He had bouquets of zucchini flowers, which Romans stuff with mozzarella and anchovy, dip in a light flour and water batter, then deep fry till golden.

He had flat green broad beans, the kind the Romans stew slowly in garlic, onion, and tomato. He had red and white runner beans, which housewives use to fill out a summer vegetable soup, and regular green beans, tiny, just picked, perfect for blanching and serving with a dribble of olive oil and lemon juice.

This amazing list goes on for two more pages.

Paula Butturini and John Tagliabue met as foreign correspondents in Rome in 1985, and proceeded to live 'four essentially joyous years' afterward. Only then, says Paula, were we sucked into what I came to think of as our own private tornado. While covering a story, she was severely beaten by police in Czechsolovakia two weeks before their wedding; three weeks later John was shot and nearly killed on the job in Romania. He then began a debilitating, 'long, slow slide into textbook depression' which lasted for years.

Keeping the Feast is not a lighthearted tale of living in Europe, filled with fabulous food where every meal is a cause for celebration, a la Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence or a Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun (both of which I loved—and the six-hour made-for-TV version of A Year in Provence is wonderful, too). Unfortunately life isn't aways joyful and funny. What has the power to help you survive the toughest times? Love and food—and in this very personal story, Paula Butturini proves just that.

Cooking was my way of trying to make us both feel at home again, to make us feel as safe and nourished as we did as children, when we ate all our meals surrounded by utter familiarity and routine. During that year on the Via Giulia, I went to the Campo six days a week, to multiply the good I took away from each visit. I bought enough food to last for a day, two at most. Everything we ate seemed to have been picked just the night before, just for us. During that year, I cooked every comfort food from my childhood and John's: pastina in chicken broth for me, simple risotto or chicken baked with garlic, rosemary and potato wedges for John.

Each chapter begins with one of Paula's food-centered memories from her Italian-American upbringing in Connecticut, which then somehow ties in to the current narrative. These stories are one of the things I enjoyed most about the book.

Until I went away to college, I ate virtually every Sunday lunch of my life with a dozen or more of my mother's relatives in my grandparents' tiny apartment. Except for those first moments of silence when everyone dug into the steaming plates before them, Comparato, Romano, Tozzi, Delia, Fucci, Gabriel, and Butturini never stopped talking, kidding, joking, telling stories, swapping news or listening to the latest tales of wacky customers at Gabriel's Meat Market. We ate a ritual menu: Jennie's pasta al ragu; followed by meatballs, sausage, chicken, pork, and braciole, thin, slices of herbed, rolled beef, all of which had flavored her thick, Neapolitan sauce. A mixed salad, "good for the digestion," always followed the meat.

The only variable dish was dessert, usually one of Jennie's homemade American specialties: fresh blueberry, apple, cherry, or pumpkin pie, depending on the season; Boston cream or lemon meringue pies on occasion; pineapple crush cake (made with zwieback, eggs, condensed milk, pineapple, and whipped cream); or on birthdays, my favorite, Auntie's chocolate cake, a moist, sour-milk, two-layer concoction spread thickly with Jennie's soft, white frosting and covered in grated coconut. . . I never lost the recipe for Auntie's birthday cake, no matter how many times I have moved. The recipe, stained with melted chocolate and vanilla, travels with me to each new country, each new kitchen. I make Auntie's cake at least once a year.

I don't have much time to read these days, and after a long and tiring, often frustrating, sometimes heartbreaking day on the farm (I don't tell you all the bad stuff!), I tend to gravitate toward books that cheer me up. Reading about depression can be, well, depressing, and much of the second half of Keeping the Feast is about 'John's illness.' There were a few times when I chose to pick up something else to read instead, wondering if I really wanted to finish the book. But later I realized that I was already looking forward to reading parts of it again.

Would you like to win an advanced copy of Keeping the Feast? To enter, simply leave a comment in this post telling us something—anything—about how food or cooking has in some way, big or small, helped you or someone else heal or survive a tough time.

One entry per person, please. I moderate comments, so if I'm away from the computer it may be several hours before yours actually appears.

You can enter through next Monday, February 1st, and I'll announce a random winner a day or two later. Please check back to see if you've won, especially if I have no way to get a hold of you (for example, if you have a blogger profile, is it public and does it list your correct e-mail address?). Sorry, but the book can only be shipped to a U.S. or Canadian street address (no P.O. boxes).

Related links:
Pre-order Keeping the Feast from amazon.com
Keeping the Feast TLC Book Tour schedule
Paula Butturini's website
Paula's blog

Other book reviews on Farmgirl Fare:
The Laws of Harmony (and readers share favorite food novels)
Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant (and what readers eat when alone)
Local Breads (and my favorite Four Hour Parisian Daily Baguette Recipe)
Cooking with Shelburne Farms (& Lamb Burgers w/ Red Pepper Olive Relish)
Comfort Food (readers share favorite comfort food stories & recipes)
The Cornbread Gospels (readers share cornbread memories & recipes)
The Artist's Palate (a beautiful cookbook for food and art lovers)
Falling Cloudberries (Greek Leg of Lamb & readers talk food/travel)
The Vegetable Gardener's Bible (my favorite gardening book)
Astrological Gardening: The Ancient Wisdom of Successful Planting & Harvesting by the Stars

© 2010 FarmgirlFare.com, the bookworm foodie farm blog where Farmgirl Susan shares recipes, stories, and photos from her crazy country life on 240 remote Missouri acres—and there's nothing better than curling up with a good book, except curling up with a good book and some good food. Keeping the Feast excerpts copyright Paula Butturini. Disclosure: I was provided a review copy of this book from the publisher.

Book Review:The Laws of Harmony by Judith Ryan Hendricks

Win a signed copy of The Laws of Harmony!

Back in March I received an e-mail message from Lisa at TLC Book Tours about a new book called The Laws of Harmony. Hmmm, I thought, a self help book. Wait. Judi Hendricks. I know that name. Of course—Judith Ryan Hendricks is the author of the bestselling novel Bread Alone and its sequel, The Baker's Apprentice, two of my favorite books (which both revolve around food and include recipes). How interesting that she's written a self-help book. Okay, nothing slow about me.

The Laws of Harmony is not, of course, a self-help book but a novel. The main character is a thirty-two-year-old woman named Sunny Cooper who lives in Albuquerque with her boyfriend Michael, runs a little company called Domestic Obligations, and works as a radio voiceover.

Harmony refers to both the name the commune near Taos, New Mexico (called Armonia, which is Spanish for harmony) where Sunny grew up, and a small town on an island off the coast of Washington state where she ends up starting a whole new life.

I received my review copy of The Laws of Harmony the same day my hunky farmguy, Joe, arrived home from a few days out of town. I'd been working like crazy for weeks and promised him I would take the entire weekend off (in as much as that's possible when you live with dozens of farm animals). I love novels but couldn't remember the last time I'd had a chance to read more than a few pages of a one at a time.

Saturday afternoon found me curled up on the loveseat with my new book, a glass of champagne, and the luxury of several lazy hours stretching ahead. By the second paragraph I was laughing out loud and reading snippets to Joe, and by the time Sunny was describing the medicine bundle necklace she'd worn since she was ten years old on page five, I knew I really liked her.

When I first got it, it was filled with the corn pollen that Navajos use in their religious ceremonies, but I kept undoing the blue wool tie and spilling the pollen, so now it just holds my Zuni bear fetish, carved from turquoise with an inlaid white shell heart line that represents the path to power in his heart. It's my talisman against drunk drivers, muggers, lightning strikes, inoperable brain tumors, falling down the stairs, or being dumped for a twenty-two-year-old cocktail waitress. I don't leave home without it.

By the end of the weekend I'd read 270 pages, totally lost myself in both the story and the far away locations (the San Juan islands are one of those places I've fantasized about moving to for years), and felt great. Maybe it was a self-help book after all.

While I suppose it would be categorized as 'women's fiction,' there's a little of everything in The Laws of Harmony: friendships, family, mother-daughter struggles (I laughed out loud when Sunny described her aging hippie mother, Gwen, as "like a cat, always attaching herself to the one person in a room who's least likely to want her around") humor, self-discovery, intrigue, deception, secrets and surprises, and tragedy. The story constantly moves back and forth between present day, the recent past, and Sunny's childhood at Armonia. Much of the book is dialogue, which I like. No recipes in this book, but food is ever present. I always love to read about what people are eating, and how food plays a part in their lives.

My sidewalk table [in front of the bakery] is just big enough for a book—a silly mystery about drug smuggling written by some local guy—a cup of coffee, and a giant, still-warm chocolate chip cookie, its caramelized edges and gooey chunks of chocolate making me want to cram the whole thing in my mouth at once. I force myself to break off little pieces and chew them slowly until they disappear. This is not the way I learned to eat.

Gwen, in spite of her back-to-the-earth lifestyle, had been raised with table manners, which she tried halfheartedly to pass on to Hart and me. But the reality of life at Armonia was, the last one in the dinner line got more rice and less chicken, more lettuce and fewer tomatoes, cukes, mushrooms, and green peppers. I learned to get it while the getting was good, and shovel it in quickly to make room for seconds.

I remember the first time I had lunch with Betsy, looking up, suddenly embarrassed by my clean plate, while she was still languidly spearing bites of asparagus, cutting an olive in half and smushing it against a crumb of Roquefort cheese. She's really the one who taught me to savor food, all the contrasting aromas, tastes, textures.

A few days later I'd finished the book and was relaying the rest of the story to Joe as we walked through the creekbed on our way back from checking on the steers. I told him I wasn't sure what to say in my review, which I reminded him would part of an official online book tour.

"I suppose there must be a happy medium somewhere between describing the entire plot—you know I don't read the back covers of novels and can't stand how movie previews always give the story away—and simply saying, 'I really liked this book, and you might, too.'"

"So it basically just tells about what happens to this girl from day to day?"

"No. Well, yeah. I mean, I guess. Well, no. It's not like the mysteries or thrillers you read where you're racing through the pages to find out what happens. I guess there must be certain ways you're supposed to judge a novel, but I have no idea what they are. All I know is that these characters are likable and believable, and I was interested in what happened to them. When I got to the end of the book, I wished there were another 480 pages."

"Then that's what you should say in your review!"

And now if you'll excuse me, I do believe today is a holiday. And since it just started pouring down rain, it's going to be a while before I can go out and plant one of the raised beds in the kitchen garden with the eggplant, sweet pepper, and basil seedlings in the greenhouse that are dying to be liberated from their cramped little plastic containers. What a perfect excuse to curl up on the loveseat and take another trip back to Harmony. Happy hour, anyone?

Related links:
The Laws of Harmony at Amazon.com
The Laws of Harmony Online Book Tour Schedule and Judi's bio
Upcoming events where you can meet Judi in person
An interview with Judi Hendricks at HarperCollins
Bread Alone at Amazon.com
The Baker's Apprentice at Amazon.com
The Kitchen Table (Judi's blog)
Sunny's Blue Ribbon Blackberry Brownie Recipe

Other book reviews on Farmgirl Fare:
Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant
Local Breads
Cooking with Shelburne Farms
Comfort Food
The Cornbread Gospels
The Artist's Palate
Falling Cloudberries
The Vegetable Gardener's Bible (my favorite gardening book)
Astrological Gardening: The Ancient Wisdom of Successful Planting & Harvesting by the Stars

Would you like to win a signed copy of The Laws of Harmony? To enter, leave a comment in this post telling us about one of your favorite novels in which food is featured in some way. If you can't think of one, then simply tell us why you'd like to win this book!

One entry per person, please. I moderate comments, so if I'm away from the computer it may be several hours before yours actually appears. If your comment doesn't show up right away, there's no need to leave another one.

You can enter through next Sunday, May 31st, and I'll announce a random winner on Monday, June 1st. Please check back to see if you've won, especially if I have no way to get a hold of you (for example, if you have a blogger profile, is it public and does it list your correct e-mail address?). Sorry, but the book can only be shipped to a U.S. address.

© Copyright 2009 FarmgirlFare.com, the book-loving foodie farm blog where Farmgirl Susan shares recipes, stories and photos from her crazy country life on 240 remote Missouri acres.

Recipe: Slow Roasted Greek Style Leg of Lamb with Lemon, Oregano, Potatoes, and Swiss Chard

Slow Food Cooking with Less Fuss, More Flavor (and One Pan!)


This one pan meal is well worth the wait—and it tastes even better the next day.

It's easy to know what's in season and what everybody's cooking if you're plugged into the online food world. Since this is Memorial Day weekend, food blogs, foodie magazine websites, and e-mail in-boxes are overflowing with grilling tips, potluck recipes, picnic ideas, cool refreshing drinks, and ice cream.

So what am I suggesting you do? Turn on the oven and slow roast a leg of lamb for four and a half hours of course. Just because I raise sheep doesn't mean I always follow the flock.

Until we fell in love with grilled lamb legs steaks* a few years ago, I cooked all of our legs of lamb the same way: slathered with a thick layer of an onion and herb mixture similar to the one I put on my Herb Crusted Lamb Spareribs, cooked just until rare, and served as thick slices. This is an entirely different way to prepare leg of lamb, and I've fallen head over heels for it.

Unlike traditional roasted leg of lamb recipes, this one cooks for several hours, but the actual prep work is minimal—and the entire meal uses just one big pan.

With this method, the meat is cooked until extremely well done, but in a really good way. It comes apart with a fork, is sort of 'dry' like barbecue, and the texture is similar to my Slow Cooked Dutch Oven Lamb Shanks or Shoulder Roasts, only with some crunchy edges, which I think are the best part. The cooking time is also fairly flexible—which can come in quite handy—and it's pretty much impossible to overcook.

This recipe is adapted from one I found in Falling Cloudberries, a delightful cookbook written by Tessa Kiros, the London-born daughter of a Finnish mother and a Greek-Cypriot father who grew up in South Africa, traveled and cooked around the world, and now lives in Tuscany with her Italian husband and two daughters.

Full of color photos and friendly stories, this is the kind of book that's fun to sit down and lose yourself in for half an hour, even if you have no intention of cooking anything for the next month.

The Laws of Harmony by Judith Ryan Hendricks& The Laws of Electricity by Mother Nature

If you're the kind of person who never knows what she's going to find when she steps outside of her farm shack—and therefore has tremendous difficulty making deadlines, keeping appointments, and planning pretty much anything in advance—the idea of participating in a virtual book tour for one of your favorite authors is very appealing, especially if the date is a couple of months away. There's no pressure, no need to leave the farm, no way that even someone as terrified of commitment as I am could screw this up.

And then last Friday a big storm blew through and knocked the power out—and it still hasn't come back on. It's never stayed off this long before. Apparently 100 poles on our electric service line went down, and it's going to take a while longer to put them back up.

Our day to day life, which often feels remarkably similar to camping, is now even more so, except with freshly picked lettuce. We grill dinner, heat water on the propane stovetop to do dishes, and are bathing in the creek. It's getting pretty old, but things could be a whole lot worse. I hope to be plugged back in and catching up with everything online soon, so check back for my review of The Laws of Harmony (which I loved by the way), along with a chance to win a signed copy.

In the meantime, the next book tour stop will be at Peeking Between The Pages on Monday May 18th, and you can find a list of the entire book tour for The Laws of Harmony here.

© Copyright 2009 FarmgirlFare.com, the candle-lit dinner and early to bed foodie farm blog where it's always nice to have a long distance best friend willing to step in and take dictation for a blog post over the phone when you suddenly find yourself powerless.

Feeding My Addictions & A Simple Pasta Recipe: Linguine with Olive Oil, Garlic, Pecorino Romano, and Parsley

And a Wonderful Book for Art Loving Foodies

Linguini or Linguine? Actually, this is tagliatelle with a side of art.

Hi, my name is Susan and I'm a book fiend, a certified foodie, and a recipe hound, which also makes me a hopeless cookbookaholic. I have a stack of cookbooks from which I've never made a single recipe and yet I still keep buying new ones. Add the words 'bargain priced' and there's no stopping me.

A few months ago I received an email message from my best friend Beth that consisted of a website address and the subject line "Cookbook store going out of business sale." Talk about an enabler. An hour later I had 12 scrumptious publications I never knew I desperately needed in my shopping cart (after painfully narrowing it down from a total of 17) and was giddily typing in my credit card and shipping information as fast as I could. I still haven't looked through them all yet.

Food and books aren't my only downfalls either. I also happen to be an art junkie. From pointillism to paint-by-numbers, linocuts to letterpress, watercolors to World War II era posters—I love it all.

In between the 50 or so feet of bookshelves, there are no fewer than 13 framed works of art decorating my small and very cluttered studio office (which I share with the clothes dryer, the only closet in The Shack, and anything that needs to be kept at or below 77 degrees—vitamins, sheep wormer, onions and garlic—since this is the only room that's air-conditioned in summer).

My favorites are two 1930s watercolors of pink flamingos by S.W. Graves and an exquisite pastel nude from the 1990s in a fancy but chipped gilded frame.

A little peek into my life

In addition, adorning the walls are two handpainted signs (one is wood and says 'Fresh Produce' and the other is metal in the shape of a pot of blue and white flowers and says 'Garden Tours'), an oversized forest green Postal Telegraph clock, and two cork bulletin boards that are completely covered with greeting cards, photos snipped from magazines, and other bits of eye-catching ephemera. Timely announcements and important papers don't stand a chance of being noticed.

But the majority of my two dimensional art is packed up in storage, kind of like at the Smithsonian where only about 10% of the actual museum's collection is ever on display at one time.

Also decorating my little room are a large antique oval hat box that says Pedigree Hats (scored in a thrift store shortly after moving to Missouri for $1.50), a cobalt blue handmade ceramic vase decorated with the face of a cat purchased 20 years ago from the artist at an outdoor fair and a small pale green ceramic Art Deco pitcher (both filled with sand and used as bookends), five bakelite radios from the 1930s, the latest addition to my collection of 1950s lucite purses (the rest are in boxes), and a gorgeous antique hand sewn wall hanging decorated with Egyptian motifs.

Don't forget the old tin of Hartz Mountain E-Z Kleen Flea Powder with a charming drawing of a child grooming a terrier-like dog on the front, the three silver knife rests from the 1930s in the shape of animals, and one of those little square puzzle games where you try to slide the 15 numbered pieces into the correct order, complete with instruction booklet dated 1933 and red leather carrying case. Then there's the black and red Art Deco tabletop display case that holds some of my prized bakelite jewelry collection and is surrounded by part of my equally prized bird nest collection.

There's more, but I'm sure you get the idea. With a background in graphic design and years spent buying and selling (and of course collecting) antiques, in my world pretty much everything is art.

The good news is that apart from weighing a few pounds more than I'd like to and having a constant shortage of wall and shelf space (not to mention a slight clutter problem), my addictions don't seem to be doing harm to me or anyone else. I'm well read and well fed, have plenty of interesting things to look at, and am always up for a story or a snack.


The makings of a quick and easy meal

Any multi-obsessive person knows that the only thing better than supporting one of your habits is finding something that will feed all of them at once, and last year I came across such a thing: The Artist's Palate, Cooking with the World's Great Artists by Frank Fedele, which immediately became one of my very favorite books.

Take one part coffee table art book, one part cookbook, one part never-before-seen portrait collection, two parts biography and memoir, and combine them with up close and personal food talk from and about some of the most famous artists in the world, and you have a publication that, for me at least, seems almost too good to be true.

If you're the kind of person who delights in finding out that Henri Matisse "rose early to take advantage of the light, and had only one large meal at midday followed by a siesta," or that Willem de Kooning was partial to Dutch food and ate a traditional Dutch breakfast of Gouda cheese, sliced ham, crusty dark pumpernickel bread, poached eggs, and tea with milk and sugar nearly every day but also adored fried chicken TV dinners, then you, too, are going to love this book.

Where else can you learn that the Grande Dame of American sculptors, Louise Bourgeois, once tried to cut up oxtails from the wholesale meat market with a bandsaw, or that the ice in Diego Rivera's Mexico City apartment's icebox was replaced every three days?

One of the real gems in this book is Frank Rehn Gallery codirector Peter Ornstein's priceless story of the surprise, "straight out of the Nighthawks" lunch he enjoyed at the home of Edward and Jo Hopper in the mid-60s, after delivering a check to the artist.

There's a recipe either directly from or somehow related to each artist profiled, including Norman Rockwell's favorite Oatmeal Cookies, Milton Glaser's Chinese Chicken Salad, Grant Wood's Strawberry Shortcake, Isamu Noguchi's Honey & Buttermilk Oatmeal (as re-created by acclaimed chef Kevin Shikami of Kevin restaurant in Chicago), and the Caramels au Chocolat that Mary Cassatt's longtime housekeeper used to prepare for her.

This book is already so wonderful that it wouldn't matter if the recipes didn't work, but they actually do. The few I've tried so far have been delicious, including this simple yet satisfying pasta from American painter and graphic artist Will Barnet.

So what delectable things (edible or otherwise) are you addicted to?



Linguine with Garlic and Oil
Serves 2 to 3 - Adapted from The Artist's Palate

From The Artist's Palate:
Will Barnet is best known for his elegant, pared-down portraits of women at repose, executed in a style he calls Classic Modernism. He had absolutely no trouble in deciding his favorite recipe. It was easy to determine since he eats it almost every day: linguini with garlic and oil. Will told me that he always finished the meal with a glass of hot tea and a sliver of Scharffen Berger dark chocolate. He sent in the label from a bar of the chocolate annotated with this handwritten note: "Sliver with a glass of hot tea—lunch or dinner—great dessert!"

This is one of those classic, simple dishes that I, too, could easily eat nearly every day. I've made it many times, including with parsley (which I think is vastly underrated) and freshly dug garlic from my organic kitchen garden. What's especially nice about it is that the ingredients are readily available year round; even in winter you can almost always find a decent head of garlic and a nice bunch of Italian parsley.

In summer look for fresh garlic and just-picked parsley at farmers' markets. As always, I urge you to use local and organic ingredients whenever possible—they really do make a difference.



The beauty of this recipe lies in its simplicity—and the quality of your ingredients of course—but that doesn't mean you can't add your own personal touch with a handful of baby arugula (so easy to grow!), some fresh basil or thyme, a diced plum tomato, or even a few wild mushrooms if you're lucky enough to have some handy. I like stirring in a spoonful or two of Trader Joe's Sun Dried Tomato Bruschetta (another addiction!), as pictured above. A little basil pesto or arugula pesto would also be nice.

The amounts of each ingredient are purely to taste—it's nearly impossible to mess this dish up. I added my More, More, More kitchen philosophy to the original version, upping the garlic, parsley, and cheese, and substituting tagliatelle when I didn't have any linguine on hand (though I prefer it with the linguine). Oh yes, and there's the added bonus that garlic, parsley, and even olive oil are all very good for you. What a delicious way to boost your immune system this winter. Bon appetit!

8 ounces dried linguine (of course fresh pasta would be wonderful)
4 to 6 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
10 to 12 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 cup (packed) chopped fresh Italian flat leaf parsley
1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Cook the pasta in salted boiling water, drain and return to the pot or a serving bowl, saving a little of the pasta water. When the pasta is nearly cooked, heat the oil in a large skillet to hot, but not smoking.

Add the garlic and lower the heat, stirring constantly for 2 to 3 minutes. Do not let the garlic burn.

Add three quarters of the parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat.

Pour the sauce over the linguine and toss thoroughly, adding a little of the pasta water if desired. Top with the grated cheese and remaining parsley.

Can't get enough garlic? You might enjoy these recipes:
Roasted Garlic Lover's White Bean Soup (fat free and vegan)
Caramelized Beets with Garlic
My Favorite Basil Pesto
Beyond Easy White Bean Pesto Dip/Spread
Hot Swiss Chard Artichoke Dip
Swiss Chard Artichoke Soup
Quick Black Bean Soup/Chili
Cream (or not) of Artichoke Soup with Garlic & Onions
Broccoli, Onion & Garbanzo Bean Soup
Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup with Onions & Garlic
Onion & Herb Crusted Lamb Spareribs
Grilled Lamb Burgers with Red Pepper, Parsley, & Olive Relish

Still hungry? You'll find links to all my sweet and savory Less Fuss, More Flavor recipes in the Farmgirl Fare Recipe Index.

© FarmgirlFare.com, the artistic foodie farm blog where pretty much everything we eat fits into one of two categories: things that go well with garlic and things that go well with chocolate.

Gift Idea: A Cornbread Lover's Kit for Under $25 & A Giveaway—Win a Signed Copy of The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon!

Is Anything Better Than Cast Iron Skillet Cornbread?

Give someone a hunk of cornbread and they eat for a day. Give them a cast iron skillet and a copy of The Cornbread Gospels and they'll eat for the rest of their life.

Okay, enough dilly dallying around. I'm going to make a long and pathetic story short. Almost a year ago I received a review copy of The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon. I tried recipes, took photos, happily ate hunks of warm cornbread with honey and tall glasses of cold milk for breakfast for days on end, fell in love with this wonderful book, started wishing I lived next door to Crescent because her stories kept making me laugh out loud—and never got around to telling you about any of it.

Shame on me. It pains me to think of all the scrumptious cornbread you and your loved ones could have been devouring during the past year if I'd been more on the ball. Not to mention all the fun you could have been having learning tons of stuff about cornbread and getting to know Crescent (who adores cornbread so much she spent six years working on this book). So let's forget the 'proper' review this book deserves and the recipes I've been meaning to share, and just cut to the chase.

I love The Cornbread Gospels and am giving away a copy signed by Crescent Dragonwagon to one lucky Farmgirl Fare reader.* To enter, leave a comment in this post telling us something (anything!) about cornbread—a favorite family recipe, what kind of cornbread you like, how you like to eat it, your first cornbread memory, a funny cornbread story, or simply why you want to win a copy of this book.

One entry per person, please. I moderate comments, so if I'm away from the computer it may be several hours before yours actually appears. If your comment doesn't show up right away, there's no need to leave another one.

You can enter through next Wednesday, December 17th, and I'll choose and announce a random winner on Thursday, December 18th. Please check back to see if you've won, especially if I have no way to get a hold of you (for example, if you have a blogger profile, is it public and does it list your correct e-mail address?). If I don't hear from you by Monday, December 22nd I'll have to pick another winner. Sorry, but this prize can only be shipped to a U.S. address.

Good luck! I can't wait to read all your cornbread comments. And in the meantime, if you're flailing around looking for a practical and delicious gift to give the food lovers on your list, consider buying them a cornbread kit. It will last forever and set you back less than 25 bucks. Simply place a copy of The Cornbread Gospels in a 10-inch cast iron skillet (which of course has a million other uses) and tie a big red bow around it. Done! If you want to go all out, you could include a pretty package of organic cornmeal and a jar of local honey.

*Monday update: My apologies for any confusion—the giveaway is for a signed copy of The Cornbread Gospels. The cornbread 'kit' is a fun gift idea I just tossed out as a suggestion.

© Copyright 2008 FarmgirlFare.com, the award-winning blog where things are always better when there's a pan of homemade cornbread around.

Book Giveaway: Win a Copy of Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs — and a Nifty Totebag!

I love books almost as much as I love food, so of course I immediately said yes last March when I was offered an advance copy of a new book called Comfort Food, "about a celebrity chef about to turn 50." The timing was interesting, too, since I'll be turning 40 (!!) next month and had just been contacted by a production company about developing a show for Food Network.*

When my copy arrived, I was surprised to discover that Comfort Food is actually a novel, and not a memoir as I had for some reason thought. I was hooked from the first paragraph — which mentions five kinds of birthday cake — and stayed up way past my bedtime that night reading. This is the kind of book you want to both devour and savor, and after I finished the last page I was tempted to turn right back to the beginning and start all over so I could keep hanging out with the characters. When I saw the unabridged audio version at the library the other day (I'm addicted to audio books!) I immediately snapped it up - and was doubly delighted to discover that it's read by Barbara Rosenblat, one of my favorite recording artists. The book is just as delicious the second time around.

Kate Jacobs' first novel was the runaway bestseller The Friday Night Knitting Club, which I'm looking forward to reading. (Have you read it?) Kate says that Comfort Food is about "food, family, friendships, and overcoming frustrations," and that's all I'm going to tell you except that the book made me laugh, cry — and hungry. If you get annoyed when the characters in novels continually go out to eat but the author never lets you know what they order (or they never seem to eat at all!) then you're going to love this book. It revolves entirely around food. The characters don't just go to the farmers' market — they discuss what they could do with all the fresh bounty while they're there. Gus, the main character, "loved to talk about food. Late at night, if she couldn't sleep, she would read cookbooks out loud to herself until she relaxed."

Ready for more than a taste? I have two hardcover copies of Comfort Food to give away, and each of them comes with a special bonus - a handy dandy canvas totebag emblazoned with the gorgeous book cover art. It's the perfect size for packing your groceries, goodies from the farmers' market, or practically anything else. I use mine constantly.

Just leave a comment in this post between now and next Thursday, July 3rd, and tell us about your favorite comfort foods. I'll randomly pick two winners and announce them a day or two (or three or four) after that. Sorry, but the books can only be shipped to U.S. addresses.

I can't wait to see your comments. And if you're like me and love to read about what other people eat, check out my Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant book review post from last year, where dozens of readers revealed what they secretly eat when they're all alone in the kitchen. If you haven't contributed yet, please feel free to add to the wonderful list.

* I've decided this isn't something I'm going to pursue now, but I sure was thrilled to be asked!

© Copyright 2008 FarmgirlFare.com, the award-winning blog where we never get tired of reading or eating - and prefer to do them simultaneously.

Book Review: Cooking with Shelburne Farms & A Recipe for Grilled Lamb Burgers with Roasted Red Pepper, Parsley, & Kalamata Olive Relish

Handmade burgers on homemade buns

It was a blind date. All I had was a name—and the deep down feeling that this time it was going to be something special. And from the moment we met, I knew that we were destined to spend the rest of our lives together.

It was immediately apparent that we share the same likes and dislikes, the same dreams and desires, the same unabashed devotion to naturally raising sheep. I felt connected as I never had before. Right from the start it was as if we were reading each others' thoughts.

If Cooking With Shelburne Farms: Food And Stories From Vermont had been a person instead of a publication, I have no doubt that our first meeting would have ended at an all-night wedding chapel in Vegas.

That's how in love I am with this wonderful new book.

I knew fate had brought us together when the first page I randomly opened to was a chapter called Caring for the Flock. It perfectly expressed how I feel about raising animals for meat:

"The Shelburne Farms' Children's Farmyard is an educational farm within the working farm, where visitors can milk a cow or goat, collect eggs, and learn how to carefully pick up a chicken, feed the animals, and maybe even witness a sow or a ewe giving birth. The natural cycle of a farm also, undeniably, includes the other end of life. A poster on the wall of the Farmyard carefully explains the life of a Shelburne Farms lamb and finishes with a photograph of a beautifully plated dish from the Inn.

It is true that lambs are about as cute as food gets, and that makes some people uncomfortable, but, 'we raise animals for human consumption here,' says Sam Smith plainly, a farmer and educator at Shelburne Farms. 'People need to recognize where their food is coming from.' "

It is most important to Sam—and to Shelburne Farms—that the flock be managed to the highest environmental and humane standards, leaving the animals on pasture and the lambs with their mothers as long as possible. 'I raise them in the best way that I can, and I try to educate people,' Sam says. 'You can't force people to do anything, but you can educate them. And I think the farmyard is probably the best place in the world to educate people about what they're eating.' "

Shelburne Farms is a 1,400-acre nonprofit environmental education center, working farm, Inn, and National Historic Landmark on Lake Champlain in Shelburne, Vermont. As part of its mission to cultivate a conservation ethic, Shelburne Farms is a dedicated supporter of local agriculture and is itself a creator of sustainably produced food, including their award-winning Farmhouse Cheddar Cheese.

Cooking With Shelburne Farms is, in turn, a celebration of Vermont-grown food, and also of the farmers, cheesemakers, foragers, hunters and fishermen, and maple sugarmakers who cultivate, harvest, or craft it.

The book contains stories from farmers and other food producers along with more than 100 recipes featuring nine iconic Vermont ingredients: Milk and Cheese, Maple, Early Spring and Summer Greens, Lamb, Wild Mushrooms, Game and Fish, Pork, Root-Cellar Vegetables, and Apples. The dishes deliver rustic flavors with a "fresh, comfortable cooking approach."

And while the ingredients and recipes are grounded in Vermont, authors Melissa Pasanen and Shelburne Farms Chef Rick Gencarelli offer variation suggestions to "encourage those of you in other parts of the country to make similar connections in your communities and develop your own sense of place through the food you cook and eat."

Recipes range from the everyday—Sausage Rolls and Deviled Ham & Cheddar Spread—to the extraordinary: Roast Duck Legs with Sour Cherry Sauce and Sage & Garlic Pan-Roasted Quail. Classic dishes are given fresh twists, and unexpected ingredients are paired in contemporary ways.

Crispy Pork Chops with Lemon Parsley Sauce takes a traditional schnitzel preparation and spices it up with coriander and cumin. Lasagne is made with mushrooms, kale and blue cheese, and buttermilk is combined with juicy plums to create a beautiful blushing sherbert.

The recipes are well written and easy to follow. Each one offers a "Before You Start" paragraph that gives helpful advice on everything from sourcing the best ingredients to making substitutions, and the Prepare-Ahead Tips make preparation even easier. The sections of sumptuous, full-color photos will no doubt have you drooling all over your beautiful new cookbook.

Cooking With Shelburne Farms (Hardcover, 296 pages, 2007 Viking Studio, $34.95) would make a very special gift for anyone who loves cooking and food. Ask for it at your local bookstore or order online from order online from Amazon.com for $23.07 with free shipping. April 2012 Update: Used copies are available from amazon for as little as $1.68.

My short list of recipes to try includes Shepherd's Pie with Caramelized Onions & Cheddar Smash; Mexican Venison Chili made with cinnamon & chocolate; Smoked Cheddar Crackers and Tomato-Cheddar soup; Maple-Roasted Butternut Squash Puree; and Chocolate-Sour Cream Cake with Bittersweet Chocolate Frosting, which, the authors warn, is "not a cake for children."

In the meantime, I've already made the scrumptious Grilled Lamb Burgers With Red Pepper, Parsley, and Kalamata Olive Relish three times. Last week I made them for my foodie mom who's been visiting from California, and I don't think she stopped moaning with pleasure until her burger was gone.

As always, I urge you to seek out local and organic ingredients; they really do make a difference.


Fresh from our farm

Grilled Lamb Burgers with Roasted Red Pepper, Parsley, and Kalamata Olive Relish
from Cooking With Shelburne Farms [My notes in brackets]
Serves 4

Authors' Notes On Lamb:
We recommend searching out local lamb that has been raised on pasture. Although people often think of lamb at two ends of a spectrum—either very delicate or quite strong and gamey—most lamb raised today has sweet, earthy, and light gamy notes. If the flavors are too strong, most likely the lamb is not as fresh as it should be.

We have found that ground lamb is especially variable, and because it will often have a fairly high level of fat, it can develop strong flavors. If you have access to a good butcher counter, it is always best to ask for your lamb to be ground fresh to order. The leanest (and priciest) ground lamb will be from the leg, but a well-trimmed shoulder is often your best bet. Good ground lamb can also come from the neck or a well-trimmed breast.


You just can't beat freshly ground meat

[Susan's note: For these burgers, we used the grinder attachment on our KitchenAid stand mixer to turn some of our own grass-fed lamb stew meat into freshly ground burger. If you're a burger lover, there's simply no comparison to freshly ground meat,whether you do it yourself or have your butcher do it for you.]

Before You Start:
We allow for a 6-ounce burger because even lean ground lamb will shrink quite a bit on the grill. If you don't have time to grill or broil the peppers yourself, the jarred roasted red peppers often found in the Italian sections of well-stocked supermarkets make a fine substitute; just make sure not to buy the marinated kind and to pat them dry before using.

If you can't cook the burgers on a grill, use a good, heavy frying pan, preferably a ridged grill pan, on the stove; lamb burgers can cause dangerous flare-ups in a broiler. [I used my grill pan the last time I made them, and it worked great.]



For the relish:
[A word of warning: If you're the type of person who nibbles while you're cooking and tends to devour condiments as if they're side dishes, this recipe will not serve 4 people. It served me, with a little bit leftover, but it can easily be doubled. This marvelous stuff is truly addictive.

I felt that it was crying out to be paired with some juicy garden tomatoes, either chopped and mixed into the relish or served sliced on the burger alongside it. It would taste just as wonderful on a beef or turkey or even pork burgers, and I plan to use it as a base for all sorts of salads next summer. You could even toss it with pasta.]

Adapted from the original recipe:
1 cup coarsely chopped red bell peppers that have been grilled or broiled until charred and then skinned and seeded (see Tip below) [I used red and golden peppers from my garden and charred them over a gas stove burner. The flavor was out of this world and definitely worth the few minutes of extra work.]
1/2 cup coarsely chopped, pitted, vinegar-marinated black olives, such as kalamata
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 teaspoons white balsamic vinegar [they called for lemon juice]
2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon finely minced garlic [my addition, optional]
Coarse kosher salt to taste [I used semi-coarse mineral salt]

For the burgers:
1½ pounds lean ground lamb
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper [I omitted]
2 Tablespoons finely minced garlic [doubled from 1 Tablespoon]
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt [I used semi-coarse mineral salt]
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Prepare a barbecue grill to cook on medium-high heat.

2. Prepare the relish: In a small serving bowl, stir together the peppers, olives, parsley, vinegar, olive oil, and salt. [This tastes even better if made several hours ahead or the night before.]

3. Prepare the burgers: In a large bowl, gently mix together the ground lamb, parsley, red pepper, garlic, salt, and black pepper. Form the mixture into four burgers, flatten them to about 3/4 inch thick, and gently press your thumb in the center of each one to help them cook evenly.

4. Grill or panfry the burgers carefully for about 3 to 4 minutes per side for medium-rare. Be forewarned that the fat in lamb can cause flare-ups. Serve the burgers on really good, lightly grilled soft buns, topped with the relish. [I put mayonnaise on mine. Aioli would be tasty, too.]

Tip: After grilling or broiling the peppers, put them in a bowl and cover it tightly with plastic wrap. Leave the peppers for bout 8 to 10 minutes and the skin will be much easier to remove. [Resist the urge to rinse the peppers under running water, as you'll end up sending much of the flavor down the drain. Don't worry if there are black specks of skin remaining on the peppers; they taste delicious. Click here for a great tutorial by my foodie friend Elise on how to roast peppers over a gas flame.]

Excerpts and recipes are from Cooking with Shelburne Farms by Melissa Pasanen with Rick Gencarelli and reproduced with permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 by Melissa Pasanen and Shelburne Farms. Article and photos © 2007 FarmgirlFare.com, the well fed foodie farm blog where Farmgirl Susan shares stories & photos of her crazy country life on 240 remote acres.