Jessica Prentice’s cookbook Full Moon Feast combines simple recipes with food history and the meanings of various meals throughout the seasons. Food has become a commodity in our time, something to be consumed quickly, and to be measured in terms of nutrient levels or cost. Flavor takes a backseat to cheapness and quality has given way to quantity. But as readers of Chelsea Green books probably know, the true value of food comes from the care that went into its creation, and joy is not something you can quantify as simply as a broker trading futures of high fructose corn syrup on Wall Street.

Simple foods made from easy-to-find ingredients, put together with love, make any season warm. This winter, try Prentice’s recipe for some spicy kimchi, a savory garnish made from fermented cabbage, plus radishes, carrots, chile peppers and other spices.

The following is an excerpt from Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection by Jessica Prentice. It has been adapted for the web.

Snow Moon

When autumn is becoming winter, we move into the lunar cycle called the Snow Moon in sixteenth-century England. Northern dwellers could expect their first snowfall, and waterways and reservoirs might start to freeze. For many peoples, this was the last opportunity to preserve food and ensure that there would be stores of necessities to last through the winter.

Nowadays we take for granted our ability to freeze and chill food in our own kitchens. But the mechanical refrigerator is an extremely modern invention. The first practical domestic refrigerator was sold in the United States in 1918, so for most of human history cold storage has ranged from elusive, to seasonal, to almost constant, depending on the local climate. Cold needed to be found and used where it was—like a root cellar dug deep in the cool ground. My father-in-law grew up in the 1920s on a Texas farm equipped with a cistern—an underground reservoir for water collected during the rains, used like a well. Dairy products and meat that needed to be kept cold would be lowered in a bucket into the cistern, so that the bucket was just immersed—but not submerged—in the cool underground water. That was their refrigeration.Some people, of course, didn’t need to look far for a source of refrigeration.

The Inuit could store their food simply by burying it in the snow or ice. But other peoples often went to great lengths to harvest ice and create the conditions for natural refrigeration. The ancient Romans had snow brought down from the Alps to be used for keeping perishable foods cold. In places where there were cold winters and warm summers, ice would be harvested before the first thaw and stored in insulated icehouses. The icehouse would then be used to preserve food throughout the warm months until the return of the Snow Moon.

The challenges of refrigeration were one of the reasons that our ancestors developed such a wide range of technologies to preserve food. We have a tendency to think that indigenous people ate their food fresh from the forest, farm, or garden, and that processed foods are a modern invention. This misimpression is based on our notion that processed foods means factory-processed foods: chips and other snack foods, cookies and sweets, boxed cold cereals, and everything that falls into the category of junk food. But the staple foods of many traditional diets were actually often quite processed, in the sense that they were taken through a process—sometimes an elaborate series of processe—before they were eaten. The difference lies in how they were processed. While our food processing is mostly done in factories
using heavy machinery, traditionally foods were processed on a relatively small-scale basis (what we would now call artisanal), and generally in the context of community.

Quick and Simple Kimchi
Makes about 1 quart

This is an easy starter version of kimchi, but it is delicious. After it is fermented, I make a quick meal by serving it in a bowl topped with soba noodles drizzled with toasted sesame oil, and a well-seasoned beef or chicken broth (such as the one I use for Asian Egg Drop Soup, page 67). You can add some cooked meat or just a sprinkling of scallions for an easy lunch or dinner.

1 head napa cabbage
1 daikon radish
1 black Spanish radish (these are common in local farmer’s markets—if you can’t find it, just leave it out or replace with another kind of radish)
1 turnip
2 carrots
2 tablespoons sea salt

1. Rinse the cabbage and cut into ½-inch strips (not the tough core). Cut the radishes, turnip, and carrot in half and then slice thinly on the diagonal. Mix the vegetables together in a bowl and sprinkle generously with sea salt. Cover with filtered water, cover with a towel, and let sit for 3 hours.

2. Meanwhile coarsely chop the garlic, ginger, and scallions. Remove the stem and seeds from the pepper and cut the skin into a few pieces. Put these ingredients into a mortar and pestle (what I use) or a food processor and mash into a paste.

3. Drain the soaking liquid off the cabbage mixture and reserve.

4. Mix the ginger paste in with the cabbage mixture and pack into a mason jar. Press the mixture down repeatedly with your fist until liquid begins to rise up. Then add enough of the soaking water into the jar so that all the vegetables are covered with liquid.

5. Now gently weigh down the top of the mixture, with a smaller jar filled with water as for the Quick Kraut above, so that the liquid rises above the solids. This pushes the vegetables down but allows the liquid to come up over the top.

6. Place the jar with the weight inside on a counter and drape a cloth napkin or tea towel over it.

7. Ferment at room temperature for 1 week, checking daily to make sure the vegetables are submerged in the brine. (If you find that you need more brine, dissolve 1 teaspoon sea salt in N cup water and pour enough liquid into the jar so that the brine covers the vegetables.)

8. Remove the plastic lid and weight, screw the top on the jar, and transfer it to the fridge. This will last for several months.

We talk a lot about preserving food here at Chelsea Green, but it’s not to be didactic! It’s because we believe in the possibilities of having power over one’s food supply, and being able to seek a more sustainable life, with a stocked larder. We believe in food that is affordable, in spaces for gardens even in the most urban of places, and the RIGHT to grow and process one’s own food.

Just last weekend we participated in the Weston A. Price Foundation conference, a convergence of raw-food advocates and fermentation fans. Three of our authors gave talks on the importance of taking control of your food, in small but significant ways, from experimenting with simple vegetable ferments to making artisan cheese, to fighting corporate control of agriculture on a national level.

But maybe we should take a moment and rewind, and revisit the whole idea of preserving food from a fundamentals standpoint. Let’s think about the WHY. And the HOW.

From our piece on Planetgreen.com:

There are plans in the works for the world’s largest telescope–one that can see back in time to the first stars and their formation. I know, right? Blows your mind. But while you wait for this magnificent (and seemingly impossible) invention, you can turn back the clocks of time in your own home. Starting in the kitchen. And by the way, you don’t even need to have a garden! Try something new: turn your produce into preserves, without nutrient loss. You’ll be eating fresh veggies even in the coldest of months, and as for your hors d’oerves platter—it’ll be the talk of the town.

The Gardeners and Farmers of Terre Vivante, an ecological research and education center located in southeastern France, are masters in the art of preserving food. But their technique is not as simple as stuffing food in your freezer, or storing them away in mason jars. They implement more traditional and old-fashioned methods using salt, oil, sugar, alcohol, vinegar, drying, cold storage, and lactic fermentation. In their book, Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation, they give tips and recipes on how to preserve food, the traditional ways.

The History of Canning and Freezing

According to the folks at Terre Vivante:

“These days, frozen foods tend to replace canned and bottled goods, since foods lose fewer nutrients through cold than through heat. But freezing is not very satisfactory either: it is expensive, consumes a lot of energy, and destroys many of the vitamins. In the home kitchen, we observe the same development as we have seen in industry: Canning, which was very popular in the 1960s (country folks each with their own sterilizers, putting up their own green beans, shell peas, and tomatoes), has given way to freezing. Emerging relatively recently (sterilization in the nineteenth century, freezing in the twentieth century), these two processes have relegated traditional food-preservation methods to obscurity, if not complete oblivion, as their scope of application has dwindled away. By far, the best example of displacement is lactic fermentation. Formerly used to preserve all sorts of vegetables, it has survived solely for making sauerkraut, and at that, more for gastronomic reasons than as a preservation process in its own right.

Fortunately, the traditional methods of preservation still live on in the French countryside, although they are rapidly disappearing. There is a wealth of knowledge to be gathered here before it falls into anonymity.”

Choosing a Method of Preservation

So what to choose in lieu of freezing and canning? According to these gardeners and farmers:

“Three methods overwhelmingly dominate the history of food preservation before the industrial age: cellar storage under cool, dark conditions, for certain fruits and winter vegetables (such as root vegetables, tubers, apples, and pears); drying, for fruit; and lactic fermentation for most other vegetables. Natural-state preservation in a cellar is the most basic way to preserve foods that take well to this method. Although it is possible to dry apples and to lacto-ferment carrots, winter provisions have traditionally relied on apples stored in a cellar in their natural state, and carrots preserved likewise in a root cellar, or in the ground.”

[…]

Read the entire article here.

Refrigerators are one of the single largest users of energy in the average home. They seem to do a decent job of keeping things cold, but they’re typically not very well insulated. This may have become abundantly clear to any of you who lost power during Hurricane Sandy recently. Food stored in a fridge that has lost power goes bad very quickly. Luckily, adding insulation to your existing fridge is a simple project you can tackle this winter with the tips below.

Stephen and Rebekah Hren, authors of The Carbon-Free Home, are serious about saving energy. And if that means wrapping shag carpeting around their refrigerator to save energy, then by gosh, bring on 1973!

This is one of our favorite projects from The Carbon-Free Home. It wins on sheer style!

Project: Insulation Of Existing Fridge

Renter friendly.
Project Time: Weekend.
Cost: Inexpensive ($50–100, depending on type of insulation used and size of frame to hold it).
Energy Saved: High. Average refrigeration uses 8 percent of the household energy budget. Insulating your refrigerator can reduce energy use by up to 50 percent.
Ease of Use: Easy. Does not affect day-to-day use.
Maintenance Level: Low. Lengthens life of fridge by reducing the compressor load.
Skill Levels: Carpentry: Moderate.
Materials: 2 × 4s, insulation, paneling, connector plates, screws, and nails.
Tools: Saw, drill, hammer.

Most household refrigerators needlessly use excess energy simply because they are poorly insulated or they do not close properly. Insulation can be added to the sides, top, and doors to greatly improve your existing refrigerator’s performance. If you are considering putting a wood cookstove in your kitchen, then extra insulation is a must. Ideally, your fridge would be separated from any heat source by being enclosed in its own closet. Before covering the sides with insu­lation, however, check that the coils usually located at the back of the fridge aren’t actually on the side by feeling if one of the sides is especially warm.

Because refrigerators work by radiating heat off the coils attached to the back (often covered with sheet metal in newer models), it is important to maximize airflow on this side, so insulation here is not a good idea. On every other side, the poorly insulated walls of the fridge allow precious cold air to leak out.

The easiest if not the most attractive way to insulate an existing fridge is to glue or tape insulation board to the sides and top. Cut the side panels so that they extend beyond the top of the fridge to the height of the insulation you put on top. Carpet or corkboard or other panels can be used to hide the insulation and add a little more protection. Alternatively, corkboard or carpet can be applied on their own, although the insulating effect will be substantially reduced. Use only a few dabs of construction adhesive to hold the insulation and carpeting or panels in place, or use plenty of two-sided carpet tape, and make sure the surface is clean and dry.

For the fridge and freezer doors, it’s probably best to skip the insulation, as the constant opening and closing could result in the bulky panels getting knocked off. Apply corkboard or carpeting directly to the doors, working around the handles. Clean the front of both doors with a nontoxic household cleaner such as vinegar or baking soda. Then simply cut out the right size of carpet or board and apply two-sided carpeting tape or a few daubs of construction adhesive around the perimeter and in a few strips in between. Get your edge lined up properly (rolling up the carpet will help), and then slowly apply the material. Shag carpet looks best and will impress your friends, who will secretly pet your fridge as they reach in for a beer.

For a top-notch insulating job that will look like fabulous cabinetry, build a 2 × 4 wall on each side, to a height of 3½ inches (one stud width) above the top of the fridge. Run a 2 × 4 along the front and back in between the two walls and connect with a plate. Fill in the two sides and top with the insulating material of your choice (see chapter 7). The sides of the box can be paneled and the front trimmed out for a sharp-looking fridge upgrade. Again, for the doors apply corkboard or carpeting directly.

[Editor’s Note: Your friends are only entitled to beer if they help you with this project. That means you, Dennis….]

Anyone who cans their own tomatoes, apple sauce, pickles, or jams knows that the difference between these simple preserves and the chemical-laced stuff you can buy at the store is immense. The flavor of home-preserved vegetables and fruits so far surpasses that of mass-produced stuff there’s almost no comparison.

But even preserving food at home by canning in a hot water bath can denature and destroy certain nutrients. To get the absolute most out of your home harvest or CSA haul you should investigate traditional methods of food preservation such as fermentation, drying, salt-curing, storage in oil or sugar, and more.

These methods are simple, require no fossil fuels, and are just as safe as hot-water-bath canning.

The following excerpt from Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation by the Gardeners & Farmers of Terre Vivant, will introduce you to some of these methods.

~

PRESERVATION WITHOUT NUTRIENT LOSS

Canning or freezing. With few exceptions, these seem to be our only choices when we want to enjoy ready-to-eat fruits and vegetables out of season. As it is used today, the word “preserves” (like the French word conserves) evokes little more than food in cans or jars, preserved through sterilization. However, the original sense of the word was much broader, encompassing all known methods of food preservation.

These days, frozen foods tend to replace canned and bottled goods, since foods lose fewer nutrients through cold than through heat. But freezing is not very satisfactory either: it is expensive, consumes a lot of energy, and destroys many of the vitamins. In the home kitchen, we observe the same development as we have seen in industry: Canning, which was very popular in the 1960s (country folks each with their own sterilizers, putting up their own green beans, shell peas, and tomatoes), has given way to freezing. Emerging relatively recently (sterilization in the nineteenth century, freezing in the twentieth century), these two processes have relegated traditional food-preservation methods to obscurity, if not complete oblivion, as their scope of application has dwindled away. By far, the best example of displacement is lactic fermentation. Formerly used to preserve all sorts of vegetables, it has survived solely for making sauerkraut, and at that, more for gastronomic reasons than as a preservation process in its own right.

Fortunately, the traditional methods of preservation still live on in the French countryside, although they are rapidly disappearing. There is a wealth of knowledge to be gathered here before it falls into anonymity. This, then, is one of the goals of this book. Nevertheless, far from presenting a study of “preservation ethnology,” this collection is meant to be a practical guide. Every recipe we have included is still in use; some have even been enhanced by the advent of new technology, such as high-performance solar dryers, and water-sealed lactic-fermentation jars.

STOPPING FOOD CONTAMINATION

Left on its own, most fresh food quickly becomes unfit for consumption. Food is biochemically altered, due to the action of enzymes, and provides microorganisms—primarily bacteria—with a fertile environment in which to grow. To prevent this process, the most radical method is simply to kill the microorganisms by placing the food in an airtight container, and then heating it to temperatures greater than 100°C/212°F for a sufficient length of time. This technique, discovered by Nicolas Appert at the beginning of the nineteenth century, gave birth to the canning industry as we know it today.

Other methods of preservation seek to prevent microorganisms from spreading, without necessarily killing them. If the temperature is too low, acidity too high, water content insufficient, or salt concentration too high, microbes simply cannot multiply. As it is equally effective to destroy microorganisms or inhibit their growth, the method chosen should be the one that best protects the appearance, flavor, and nutritional value of the food, without adding undesirable substances. Of course, no method is ideal: During any preservation process, some alteration of the food is unavoidable. Moreover, no one method has proven superior to all others in all cases. And so, for most foods, we have a variety of techniques to choose from, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

CHOOSING A METHOD OF PRESERVATION

Three methods overwhelmingly dominate the history of food preservation before the industrial age: cellar storage under cool, dark conditions, for certain fruits and winter vegetables (such as root vegetables, tubers, apples, and pears); drying, for fruit; and lactic fermentation for most other vegetables.

Natural-state preservation in a cellar is the most basic way to preserve foods that take well to this method. Although it is possible to dry apples and to lacto-ferment carrots, winter provisions have traditionally relied on apples stored in a cellar in their natural state, and carrots preserved likewise in a root cellar, or in the ground.

Nor is the choice between drying and lactic fermentation made arbitrarily. Experience has shown that dried fruits keep much better than most dried vegetables, retaining more flavor and vitamins due to their natural acidity. It is no coincidence that one of the few vegetables traditionally preserved by drying is the tomato, an acidic fruit-vegetable. As for lactic fermentation, people soon discovered that it was an unsuitable method for most fruit: Everyone knows that when fruit is fermented, we get alcoholic beverages.

Applications for the other methods of food preservation described in this book—sugar, salt, oil, vinegar, wine, and alcohol—are more limited, but certainly interesting nonetheless. For example, there are no substitutes for slow evaporation when preserving sugar-free jams, nor for oil and vinegar with herbs, salt with cod, and so on. In practice, the choice is often obvious, and simply depends upon the food to be preserved and its future culinary use.

ALTERING OR ENHANCING?

Inevitably, food is altered in the preservation process. However, unlike sterilization or freezing, many traditional methods do not necessarily mean a loss in flavor or nutritional value. Lactic fermentation, for example, enhances digestion and also increases the enzyme and sometimes the vitamin content, compared with the unfermented food. In other processes, the act of preserving often enhances the flavor of a food rather than its nutritional value. It might seem bizarre to preserve grapes in vinegar when this fruit keeps perfectly well by drying, but any gourmet will tell you that grapes in vinegar are divine with game or poultry.

Preserving basil in oil and vinegar serves two purposes: to preserve the flavor of this precious herb itself, and to impart its flavor to two ingredients used daily in cooking. And while drying preserves fruits, it also increases their sugar content, opening a new world of uses, such as sweetening desserts and certain beverages and providing energy-rich snacks for athletes. In bygone days, North Africans used raisins or dates, not cane sugar, to sweeten tea.

Over fifteen centuries ago, Hippocrates himself pointed out the positive effects of different preservation methods on the quality and properties of meat:

Meats preserved in wine become dry and are nourishing: they dry out because of the wine; they are nourishing because of the flesh. Preserved in vinegar, they ferment less, because of the vinegar, and are quite nourishing. Meats preserved in salt are less nourishing, as salt deprives them of moisture, but they become lean, dry out, and are sufficiently laxative.

The art of food preservation, which remains in part to be discovered, is this: For each food, use the method that not only best protects its nutritional value, but also enhances its flavor (and occasionally medicinal qualities), according to the eventual use we have in mind.

A NOTE ON FOOD SAFETY

Today, as home gardeners and cooks rediscover the joys of preserving, they often must confront a gap in cultural knowledge. Instead of turning to a parent or grandparent for advice, they turn to government agencies (chiefly the USDA) or to conventional books on canning, which advise sterilizing jars of food in either a boiling water bath or a pressure canner. However, as this book demonstrates, there are many traditional options for putting up fresh food that help food retain more of its flavor and nutritive value.

There is an important distinction to be made between sanitary and sterile conditions. Unless you live in an autoclave or hospital operating room, your kitchen (no matter how sanitary) will be far from sterile. Fortunately, absolute sterility isn’t necessary for most aspects of food preservation. For instance, though metal jar lids and tops will need to be boiled and sterilized, you can keep many disease-causing microbes in check simply by washing your hands frequently; by rinsing off raw foods; by thoroughly cleaning all utensils and cutting surfaces; and by following a few commonsense food safety guidelines (such as avoiding “cross-contamination” by using different utensils and surfaces to prepare raw meats and other foods).

In most (though not all) cases, food that has spoiled in storage should be readily apparent. Signs to look for include mold growing inside the lid of the container, on the food itself, or on the outside of the jar. Food that is badly discolored or darkened, or that is smelly or slimy, is likewise suspect and should be thrown away. When food is going bad, small bubbles may form inside a storage jar, and gas or liquid may escape in a rush when you unseal the container.

Remember that the point of preserving food is not to place it forever in suspended animation, but to extend the bounty of the fresh harvest season. Depending upon the type of food and the method of preservation used, this extension, or “shelf life,” might range from a few weeks to many months. Think of your pantry or cold cellar as a close cousin to the outdoor cold frame or unheated greenhouse—a simple, low-cost technology that can help you prolong the garden year and make the most of it. Many of the recipes in this book provide estimates on how long the prepared or stored foods will keep in good condition. Using this information, it’s possible to enjoy your preserved foods at their peak of flavor, just as you would fresh fruits and vegetables. Here’s to good food and good health!

One thing we all know is that where our food comes from and how it is grown matters. It matters to our sense of place and community, to our sense of taste and biodiversity, and, most importantly, to our relationship with the environment.

We believe that having control over your food supply—whether you’re an educational farm at Green Mountain College or just someone who cares about where your food is grown—is key to a more resilient, sustainable foodshed.

A major part of Chelsea Green’s mission is to inspire you with ideas and practical tips. So whether you want to get your hands in the dirt and grow fresh vegetables; find a new recipe for using the food in your CSA box; or preserve those vegetables you just learned how to grow—we have the book for you, and best of all we’ve put some of our keystone food books on sale this month.

Chelsea Green believes in publishing books that you will turn to time and time again. We don’t cater to fads or flash-in-the-pan trends, but rather we focus on being a resource for timeless, traditional skills.

Happy reading from the folks at Chelsea Green Publishing.

Home Baked: Nordic Recipes and Techniques for Organic Bread and Pastry

Retail Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $25.97

Bakers interested in taking their breadmaking to the next level will love our new book Home Baked, a richly-illustrated and recipe-driven book on Nordic baking (both sweet and savory). Written by Hanne Risgaard, and translated by her daughter, Marie-Louise, Home Baked comes to us from a Danish family that not only bakes beautiful breads, but grows all the grains organically and grinds them on site. The results are inspiring — and mouthwatering.

Nordic cuisine, at the moment, is very much on the minds of chefs and diners in the United States. Why?

Chelsea Green Senior Editor Makenna Goodman says, “There is so much interest in Nordic cuisine right now, and part of that is because of the unique ecological twists in Scandinavian recipes — lots of interest in foraging and fermentation, for example. So, if you love bread and baking, and you’re interested in unique ingredients like stinging nettles and protein-filled grain that’s closer to its traditional cousin, then this book is the one for you.”

The book includes gorgeous color photographs, step-by-step instructions on working dough, information on spelt and rye, as well as common wheat.

The Risgaard’s story of turning their conventional family farm into a place that could produce “the world’s best flour…or get as close as possible,” was recently featured in Bread, an online magazine. Read the full Bread interview here.

Taste, Memory: Forgotten Foods, Lost Flavors, and Why They Matter   Retail Price: $17.95  Sale Price: $11.67   Taste, Memory traces the experiences of modern-day explorers who rediscover culturally rich forgotten foods and return them to our tables for all to experience and savor. Author David Buchanan shares stories of slightly obsessive urban gardeners, preservationists, environmentalists, farmers, and passionate cooks, and weaves anecdotes of his personal journey with profiles of leaders in the movement to defend agricultural biodiversity.  Taste, Memory begins and ends with a simple premise: that a healthy food system depends on matching diverse plants and animals to the demands of land and climate. In this sense of place lies the true meaning of local food. Read Chapter One: Seeds of an Idea…. The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World   Retail Price: $39.95  Sale Price: $25.97 We can confidently say that this is the most comprehensive guide to do-it-yourself home fermentation ever published. Sandor Katz presents the concepts and processes behind fermentation in ways that are simple enough to guide a reader through their first experience making sauerkraut or yogurt, and in-depth enough to provide greater understanding and insight for experienced practitioners. A New York Times Bestseller! While Katz expertly contextualizes fermentation in terms of biological and cultural evolution, health and nutrition, and even economics, this is primarily a compendium of practical information—how the processes work, parameters for safety, techniques for effective preservation, troubleshooting, and more. Read Michael Pollan’s enusiastic and inspired Foreword. READ IT HERE…. OR take a peak of an excerpt on Sourdough. READ IT HERE… From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce   Retail Price: $19.95  Sale Price: $12.97 Ever wonder how you’ll ever be able to use all your vegetables? From Asparagus to Zucchini answers the question of what to do with your armloads of greens, exotic herbs (and the never-before-seen vegetables), with recipes that are as concise and doable as they are appealing. Created for and by Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members, the book is an indispensable tool for anyone who wants to eat seasonally and locally. Organized by vegetable—53 in all—each section includes nutritional, historical, and storage information, as well as cooking tips. With more than 420 original recipes created, tested, and enjoyed by chefs, CSA members, and farmers, you’ll never be without a delicious recipe to make the most of the season’s bounty. Fresh From Maine, 2nd Edition: Recipes and Stories from the State’s Best Chefs   Retail Price: $32.50 Sale Price: $21.13 In the 2nd edition of Fresh From Maine, author Michael Sanders takes you deep into the world of 25 Maine chefs, their stories, challenges, secrets, and triumphs. More than 80 recipes, nearly half of them new to this edition and all brought to life by Maine photographer Russell French, capture the true bounty of this land and its waters. Each chef’s cuisine is very much his own, but they share one thing: they all work in the sustainable idiom with local farmers, animal raisers, and fishermen to bring the best, all-natural food, much of it organic, to their tables. Join us in discovering culinary outposts and innovative chefs all over the state, from Fryeburg to Hallowell, from Bangor to Brunswick and coastal Maine from Kittery to Mount Desert.  Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lover’s Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously   Retail Price: $32.50   Sale Price: $22.72 More than just a cookbook, Long Way on a Little presents Hayes’ practical knowledge about integrating livestock into a sustainable society with her accessible writing and engaging wit. Designed to be the only meat book a home cook could ever need, Long Way on a Little is packed with Hayes’ signature delicious no-fail recipes for perfect roasts and steaks cooked indoors and out on the grill, easy-to-follow techniques to make use of the less-conventional, inexpensive cuts that often go to waste, tips on stretching a sustainable food budget, and an extensive section on using leftovers and creating soups; all with the aim of helping home cooks make the most effective and economical use of their local farm products or their own backyard livestock.     Slow Wine   Retail Price: $25.00 Sale Price: $16.25 Slow Wine adopts a new approach to wine criticism and looks beyond what is in the glass. A wine cannot be judged by scores, symbols or other numerical evaluations, but needs to be assessed in a broader context. The guide centres round the agronomical efforts of cellars, describing vines planted, vineyards tended and the philosophy underpinning the work of winemakers. Three sections describe the cellars in their entirety: Life, the stories of the leading players in the world of winemaking; Vines, profiles of vineyards according to their characteristics and the way they are managed; and Wines, straightforward descriptions backed up by comprehensive statistics. “We are the only wine guide that visits each winery, so the information is first-hand,” said editor Giancarlo Gariglio of the 200-person staff it takes to put the guide together each year. “We visit the vineyard, the cellar, and taste with the producer.” Cooking Close to Home: A Year in Seasonal Recipes   Retail Price: $34.95 Sale Price:  $22.72 A collection of over 150 original recipes designed to follow the seasons using the foods available in your region. Whether you are a home gardener, a farmers’ market regular, or a member of a community-supported agriculture program, this cookbook will serve as a seasonal guide to using the foods available in your region. Each recipe includes useful “Harvest Hints” that explain how to find, purchase, prepare, and preserve fresh and seasonal ingredients. Flip to the last chapter for recipes and tips on preserving the harvest: jam, pesto, pickles, and more. BROWSE THE ENTIRE BOOK…

**Titles on Sale until November 15th**

Is frost setting in on your strawberries, or dipping temperatures terminating your tomatoes?

The growing season for temperate climate gardeners is pretty much over by this time of year. But we know locavores are hungry all-year-round, and that’s why we love to publish books to help you take control over your food supply even in the dead of winter. From Eliot Coleman’s easy methods of gardening under cold frames, to Sandor Katz’s techniques for turning your kitchen into a bubbly fermentation factory, our authors keep the homegrown fun going.

One of our favorite resources for off-season growing or simply growing food year-round in your urban “homestead” is Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener’s Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting by R. J. Ruppenthal. The book shows you how to grow vegetables on balconies and patios, but also how to grow some simple and nutritious foods indoors such as sprouts and mushrooms.

This excerpt explains how to start your very own oyster mushroom farm. Give it a try!

~

Oyster mushrooms are probably the easiest kind of mushrooms to grow. Though they are accustomed naturally to growing in wood, you also can raise oyster mushrooms in a variety of other growing media, including straw or sawdust. The easiest way to begin is with a kit. If you want to experiment on your own, then oysters give you a greater chance of success than other mushrooms. There are dozens of varieties of oyster mushrooms, from pin-sized to trumpet-sized, so check with your kit or spore supplier to see which kinds are available and recommended for your climate. Most grow in an ideal temperature range of about 55 to 65 degrees F.

Most oyster mushroom growing kits consist of either a small inoculated log or a holey plastic bag filled with sterilized, inoculated straw or sawdust. You can make your own kit using any of these materials, but I will recommend one other method that has worked well for many indoor mushroom growers. For this you will need two milk cartons or small waxed-cardboard boxes, enough sawdust to fill them, 2 cups of whole grain flour or coffee grounds, and some oyster mushroom spawn. The basic steps are as follows, but feel free to improvise. If sawdust is unavailable, you could also use straw for this.

1. Cut out the top of the milk cartons so that their edges are of even height. Punch several small holes in each side of both cartons.
2. Sterilizing (optional): If you are using sawdust that has already been inoculated with spawn, then do not try to sterilize it or you will kill the fungi. If you are using additional sawdust that has not been inoculated yet, then you may want to sterilize it. The easiest ways to do this are by boiling, steaming, or microwaving it. If anyone else in your household might object to cooking sawdust in the kitchen, then you might want to try this step when no one else is home. To sterilize with a microwave oven, fill a microwave-safe bowl with sawdust, plus the flour or coffee grounds, and wet down this mass with enough water so that it is the consistency of a wet sponge. You may need to do several successive batches to sterilize all of your sawdust. Nuking the sawdust on high for two minutes or until the water begins to boil off will kill any unwanted organisms and leave your kitchen smelling like either a wood shop or coffee shop. You also can boil or steam the growing medium in a pot of water in the kitchen or over a campfire, with or without a steamer basket. After it has boiled for a few minutes, turn off the heat, keep the sawdust covered, and let it return to room temperature.
3. Using non-chlorinated water, wet the sawdust until it’s thoroughly damp. Then mix in your spores or inoculated material.
4. Tightly pack this damp growing medium into your milk cartons and leave them in a cellar, garage, storage locker, or dark cabinet. You can put some plastic underneath the cartons and cover them loosely with plastic if desired. If insects are a problem, then spray cooking oil around the plastic to trap them. Keep the sawdust mix moistened regularly with nonchlorinated water, and in a few months your fungi should fruit repeatedly. To harvest mushrooms, twist them out gently so that their stems do not break.

Related Posts:

• Growing Shiitake Mushrooms in a Garage or Yard
• Simple and Tasty Recipes You Can Make Using Your Homegrown Sprouts
• Value Your Neighborhood Bees and Fight Colony Collapse Disorder

As winter approaches, the gardening locavore starts assessing her stock of pickled beans, dried herbs, and preserved fruits. But what about the potatoes, beets, turnips, carrots? What’s a gardener to do with those when the thermometer drops?

Most homesteaders opt for the simple solution of a root cellar. Eliot Coleman, a successful farmer in Maine, weighs in with some tips for building one below. While you’re thinking about how to make your homestead run like organic clockwork, you should enter our latest giveaway in partnership with Mother Earth News. You could win a great selection of books for your how-to homesteading library.

Check out the giveaway here, and happy homesteading!

The following is an excerpt from Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables From Your Home Garden All Year Long by Eliot Coleman. It has been adapted for the Web.

No one wants second best. A slimy cabbage from a dingy corner of the basement will never compete with the crisp specimens on the vegetable shelf of the supermarket. Wilted, dried-out carrots look unappealing next to the crunchy, plastic-wrapped beauties in the refrigerator. When home storage is unsuccessful, a case can be made for artificial refrigeration. But the cabbage need not be slimy nor the carrots wilted. A properly constructed root cellar does not take a backseat to any other method of food storage. It is no great feat to manage a simple underground root cellar so that the produce will be equal or superior in quality to anything stored in an artificially refrigerated unit, even after long periods of storage.

A successful root cellar should be properly located, structurally sound, weather tight, convenient to fill and empty, easy to check on and clean, and secure against rodents. Proper location means underground at a sufficient depth so frost won’t penetrate. The cellar should be structurally sound so it won’t collapse on you. It needs to be weather tight so cold winds can’t blow in and freeze the produce. You need to have easy access to fill it, to use the produce, and to clean it at the end of the winter. And it should be rodent-proof so all the food you have stored away won’t be nibbled by rats and mice.

Provision must be made for drainage as with any other cellar, and the cellar should be insulated so that it can maintain a low temperature for as long as possible and provide properly humid storage conditions. Finally, microclimates within the cellar (colder near the floor, warmer near the ceiling) should allow you to meet different temperature and moisture requirements for different crops. The cellar will be most successful if it incorporates your underground food storage needs into one efficient, compact unit. It’s surprising how easily a hole in the ground meets all those conditions.

Any house with a basement already has a potential root cellar. You just need to open a vent so cold air can flow in on fall nights, and sprinkle water on the floor for moisture. The temperature control in the root cellar is almost automatic because cold air, which is heavier than warm air, will flow down, displacing the warmer air, which rises and exits. This lowers the temperature in the cellar incrementally as fall progresses and the nights get cooler. By the time outdoor conditions are cold enough to require moving root crops to the cellar (around October 21 to November 7 here in Maine), conditions in the underground garden are just right-cool and moist. With minimal attention, they will stay that way until late the next spring.

No wood or other material that might suffer from being wet should be used in root cellar construction. The ideal root cellar is made of concrete or stone with rigid insulation around the outside. Any permanent wood in a root cellar soon becomes damp and moldy. Wood will not only rot but also will serve as a home for bacteria and spoilage organisms and is subject to the gnawing entry of rodents. The stone or concrete cellar is impregnable. It won’t rot or decompose, and the thick walls hold the cool of the earth.

The easiest way to make a root cellar is to wall off one corner of the basement as a separate room. The best material is concrete block. There is no problem even if the rest of the basement is heated. You simply need to insulate one temperature zone from the other. Leave enough space between the top of the walls and the joists of the floor above so you can install a cement-board ceiling with rigid insulation above it. Also attach rigid insulation to the heated side of the cellar walls you build. The insulation can be protected with a concrete-like covering such as Block Bond. Install an insulated metal door for access, and the structure is complete.

There are several simpler options, especially for storing small quantities of vegetables. If your house has an old-fashioned cellar with a dirt floor and there is enough drainage below floor level, you can dig a pit in the floor 18 to 24 inches deep, line it with concrete blocks, and add an insulated cover. You will want to open the cover every few days to encourage air exchange in the pit. The pit won’t be as easy to use as a room you can walk into, but like any hole in the ground, it should keep root crops cool and moist. In warmer climates, you can use similar pits or buried barrels for storage either outdoors or in an unheated shed.

One of the simplest techniques we ever used, before we had a root cellar, was to dig pits in one section of the winter greenhouse. In that case we used metal garbage cans and buried them to their edge in the soil under the inner layer. To make sure they stayed cool we insulated their lids. We filled those cans with all the traditional root crops after their late fall harvest. Our whole winter food supply that year was in one central spot and when we went out to harvest fresh spinach and scallions for dinner we would bring back stored potatoes and cabbage at the same time.

Is your happy hour missing something?

You’re sitting there, enjoying a glass of wine, a pint of beer, or a snifter of scotch — depending upon your tastes. The cares of the week are melting away as you slip under the spell of alcohol, one of the human race’s most ancient and most reliable methods of improving the general mood (and, of course, you are enjoying your spirits responsibly, and would never consume too much, nor operate an automobile after imbibing). But then you stop. You stop and you can’t help but wonder: where’s the cake?

Okay, so maybe your daydreams aren’t as floury as mine. Regardless, this recipe for boozy cake from Vermont author and chef Deirdre Heekin would make any hour happier. Give it a try!

The following is an excerpt from Libation: A Bitter Alchemy by Deirdre Heekin. It has been adapted for the Web.

recipe for pan di spagna, using alkermes

Pan di spagna, or Spanish bread, is a traditional “keeping cake” born out of the medieval convent kitchen. Because of the egg whites, this cake has incredible longevity (hence the “keeping” quality), and while it is delicious served fresh and spongy, I like it left to dry. Then it soaks up the liquid and flavor of the alkermes all the better.

• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1 cup flour, sifted
• Alkermes liqueur, for bathing the cake
• Fresh whipped cream
• Mint or rose garnish, if you like

Butter and flour an 8-inch cake pan, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Beat the egg yolks and sugar until ribbony, then add the vanilla and lemon zest and mix thoroughly. Add the flour and mix it in thoroughly but gently; hard mixing will toughen the batter and the texture of the final cake. Let the batter rest while you whip the egg whites until they are just stiff, but still soft and not dry. Using your bare hand, mix one-third of the egg whites into the batter, taking care to break up the yellow cake mixture and saturate it with the whites. Add another third of the whites and mix it in gently but thoroughly. Finally, fold in the remaining whites, leaving streaks of whites throughout the batter. Fill the cake pan to a depth of 1 inch, and level the batter out in the pan. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a small knife comes out clean and the cake has just pulled away from the insides of the pan. Let the cake rest for 10 or 15 minutes, then remove it from the pan and let it cool completely. For serving, you can spoon a little of the alkermes over each slice and garnish with fresh whipped cream. Another way to present the dessert is to pour some liqueur in a shallow dish, cut each portion in half horizontally, dip the cut face of the bottom half in the liqueur, place it on the serving plate with some whipped cream on it, then dip the cut face of the top half in the liqueur and place it on top, thus completing the portion. Add a dollop of whipped cream on top. Garnish with a sprig of mint or rose petals and serve.

Here’s a great tip from Stephen and Rebekah Hren from their book The Carbon-Free Home: 36 Remodeling Projects to Help Kick the Fossil-Fuel Habit. Harvested rainwater needs filtration before it is potable. Pollution, particles from the air, debris from the collection system (your gutters) are not things you want to find in your tall glass of ice water. Instead of investing in a garage-sized Brita pitcher, Stephen and Rebekah have another idea: sand.

Curious about more simple and effective energy-saving ideas? You can enter to win a copy of The Carbon-Free Home in our latest giveaway contest in partnership with Mother Earth News! Sign up here for your chance to win this and seven other foundational titles for your sustainable-living library.

From The Carbon-Free Home:

Sand filters (also called biofilters) are a biological way of purifying drinking water. Low turbidity (suspended sediment in the water) is a requirement for sand filters to function effectively. Fortunately, a well-functioning rainwater-catchment system should meet this requirement. Sand filters can purify only small amounts of water at a time, as they are unpressurized and work using gravity, so purifying is limited to drinking water. Essentially a sand filter is a large drum filled with sand. Water enters the top and slowly percolates through. A thin, biologically active layer (called the hypogeal layer) quickly forms on top, feeding on the bits of organic residue and other impurities in the water. By the time the water has made it through the several feet of sand, it is potable and remarkably clean. Eventually, the hypogeal layer becomes too thick and needs to be either scraped off or destroyed by drying and backflushing (the water from the flush being disposed of into a nearby thirsty plant). A new one quickly forms and water filtration can continue.

Drawing courtesy of Dennis “Mad Man” Pacheco

The following recipe was adapted for the Web from Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection by Jessica Prentice.

In midautumn, when the air is growing colder and the nights longer, comes the Blood Moon. Also called the Hunter’s Moon by indigenous peoples in the eastern woodlands, it was a time when northern dwellers of many cultures would work to ensure that their store of meat would last the winter. They did this by hunting wild game or slaughtering farm animals. It was a time of year when blood was shed.

~

Swedish Meatballs
Serves 3–4

Swedish meatballs are traditionally served with boiled potatoes and lingonberry jam. I often eat them with mashed potatoes, and a dollop of sauerkraut, and a fresh green vegetable. Lingonberry or another tart jam goes beautifully as well. I add liver for increased nutrition.

• 1 pound ground grass-fed beef or other red meat
• 3-ounce liver from grass-fed ruminant animal
• 1/2 onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1 handful parsley leaves—or substitute celery leaves or a lesser quantity of lovage leaves
• 1 egg yolk
• 2–5 tablespoons sourdough bread crumbs, sprouted flour (or cereal), or stiff raw sourdough, as needed
• 1 teaspoon Celtic sea salt, or other high-quality salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dried herbs such as thyme, sage, marjoram, oregano, or rosemary (optional)
• 1–3 tablespoons tallow, lard, or other fat
• 1 cup beef (or other) broth, brought to a simmer (covered) in a small pan with a few parsley stems, slices of onion, and a bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon kuzu or arrowroot dissolved in 1/4 cup cold milk or broth
• 1/4 cup créme fraîche
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Put the ground beef into a bowl.
2. In a food processor, place the liver, onion, and parsley leaves, and process by pulsing into a coarse texture.
3. Add the egg yolk and 2 tablespoons of the bread crumbs, flour, or sourdough to the food processor. Also add the salt, pepper, and dried herbs, then pulse until well mixed.
4. Add the contents of the food processor to the ground beef and mix thoroughly. If the mixture is too wet, add more bread crumbs or flour until you can form balls with your hands.
5. Form the meat into balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.
6. Heat the tallow or other fat in a skillet over medium-high heat. When the fat is hot, add the meatballs in a single layer without crowding. (You will probably need to cook them in two batches.)
7. After the bottoms of the meatballs are cooked, gently turn them so that they can cook on another side. Continue until they are cooked on all sides and all the way through. Keep warm on a plate.
8. Strain the beef broth into the skillet and scrape up all the browned bits into the broth as it cooks. Simmer for a few minutes to reduce.
9. Add the kuzu or arrowroot mixture to the pan and whisk until thick. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Whisk in the créme fraîche.
10. If the meatballs are too cool, you can return them to the gravy to warm up. Otherwise, pour the gravy over the meatballs.