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**

Gourmet Adventure Month is here, and we’ve got a great selection of “safari guides” to help you survive your voyage into the flavorful wild.

Don’t fear, as you leave the well-worn path behind. Turn away from white rice, bland bread, and sorry salads. A whole world of exciting, nurturing foods await—from the idyllic isles of Denmark to the weeds in your own backyard.

These fun food books will be on sale for 35% off this week.

Reg. Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $25.97

The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World

Did you know there’s more bacterial DNA in your body than human DNA? Better make friends with them!

The Art of Fermentation, Sandor Katz’s encyclopedic and inspiring guide to all things tangy and alive, will get you started on the right foot with your microbial buddies. Not even scientistss fully understand how probiotic, live-culture foods help keep us healthy, but Katz’s main concern is deliciousness. From yogurt to kimchi to sourdough bread, once you go wild, you’ll never go back!

.

Reg. Price: $34.95 Sale Price: $22.72

Wild Flavors: One Chef’s Transformative Year Cooking from Eva’s Farm

Is the produce aisle seeming a little too tame lately? Mass-produced tomatoes with no flavor, kale greens tough from spending days in a truck, the same old broccoli again and again.

Wild Flavors delivers exactly what its title promises. Chef Didi Emmons spent a year visiting Eva Sommaripa’s farm, which provides fresh greens, herbs — and vegetables commonly known as weeds — to Boston restaurants. Calaminth, purslane, arugula flowers? Pure, yummy magic. Even Didi’s cat Henry — pictured above, attacking the asparagus — went a little wild on Eva’s farm.

.

Reg. Price: $17.95 Sale Price: $11.67

The Weeder’s Digest: Identifying and Enjoying Edible Weeds

Fighting weeds in your garden is tough work. Gail Harland’s new book, The Weeder’s Digest, sets out to make it a little sweeter.

With color photos throughout, and plenty of recipes, the book will show you which plants formerly known as weeds you can eat, how to cook them, and how to identify the ones you should avoid.

Weeds, if you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em!

.

Reg. Price: $34.95 Sale Price: $22.72

Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lover’s Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously

Author Shannon Hayes is on a mission to help cooks enjoy ethical meat.

In her latest book, Long Way on a Little, she explains how to use as much of the animal as possible, how to cook grassfed meat properly, how to render fat into lard, and much, much more. It’s the only cookbook a meat lover needs.

.

.

Reg. Price: $17.95 Sale Price: $11.67

Taste, Memory: Forgotten Foods, Lost Flavors, and Why They Matter

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 explores questions fundamental to the future of food and farming. How can we strike a balance between preserving the past, maintaining valuable agricultural and culinary traditions, and looking ahead to breed new plants? What place does a cantankerous old pear or too-delicate strawberry deserve in our gardens, farms, and markets? To what extent should growers value efficiency and uniformity over matters of taste, ecology, or regional identity?

.

Reg. Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $25.97

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

Baking your own bread is an adventure every time. Will your kitchen be at the right temperature or humidity to make your dough behave? Will it end up sticky and unmanageable, or rising too fast? Forming a relationship with flour, water, yeast, and salt is part of why baking is so much fun.

Home Baked is a guide book to further adventures with dough. Beyond just your typical wheat flour, this book introduces spelt and rye, plus a Nordic flair for special ingredients like wildcrafted stinging nettles, leeks, elderflowers, and more.

.

Reg. Price: $18.00 Sale Price: $11.70

Drinking in Maine: 50 Cocktails, Concoctions, and Drinks from Our Best Artisanal Producers and Restaurants

Fifty sensational drinks featuring Maine distilled gins, vodkas, brandies, local honey meads, fruit wines, and heirloom apple ciders — all created by producers and barkeeps from Maine restaurants and bistros

From a piping hot Apple Toddy featuring Maine mead, gin, and cranberry bitters; to a cooling fresh take on summer’s all-time favorite drink, Back Porch Lemonade with Cold River Vodka and local ginger beer, you’ll find drinks for all seasons and all tastes.

.

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.

Ginger is a spice perfect for fall weather. Its fragrance can perk up everything from chai tea to apple pie. This humble root can also add a gentle kick of heat to stir fries or soups.

The natural yeasts in the root can also be used to kick start a bubbly ginger beer. Give it a try!

The following recipe is from Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods, by Sandor Katz.

This Caribbean-style soft drink uses a “ginger bug” to start the fermentation. I got this idea from Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions. The ginger bug is simply water, sugar, and grated ginger, which starts actively fermenting within a couple of days. This easy starter can be used as yeast in any alcohol ferment, or to start a sourdough.

This ginger beer is a soft drink, fermented just enough to create carbonation but not enough to contribute any appreciable level of alcohol. If the ginger is mild, kids love it.

TIMEFRAME: 2 to 3 weeks

INGREDIENTS (for 1 gallon/4 liters):

• 3 inches/8 centimeters or more fresh gingerroot
• 2 cups/500 milliliters sugar
• 2 lemons
• Water

PROCESS:

1. Start the “ginger bug”: Add 2 teaspoons (10 milliliters) grated ginger (skin and all) and 2 teaspoons (10 milliliters) sugar to 1 cup (250 milliliters) of water. Stir well and leave in a warm spot, covered with cheesecloth to allow free circulation of air while keeping flies out. Add this amount of ginger and sugar every day or two and stir, until the bug starts bubbling, in 2 days to about a week.
2. Make the ginger beer any time after the bug becomes active. (If you wait more than a couple of days, keep feeding the bug fresh ginger and sugar every 2 days.) Boil 2 quarts (2 liters) of water. Add about 2 inches (5 centimeters) of gingerroot, grated, for a mild ginger flavor (up to 6 inches/15 centimeters for an intense ginger flavor) and 11/2 cups (375 milliliters) sugar. Boil this mixture for about 15 minutes. Cool.
3. Once the ginger-sugar-water mixture has cooled, strain the ginger out and add the juice of the lemons and the strained ginger bug. (If you intend to make this process an ongoing rhythm, reserve a few tablespoons of the active bug as a starter and replenish it with additional water, grated ginger, and sugar.) Add enough water to make 1 gallon (4 liters).
4. Bottle in sealable bottles: Recycle plastic soda bottles with screw tops; rubber gasket “bail-top” bottles that Grolsch and some other premium beers use; sealable juice jugs; or capped beer bottles, as described in chapter 11. Leave bottles to ferment in a warm spot for about 2 weeks.
5. Cool before opening. When you open ginger beer, be prepared with a glass, since carbonation can be strong and force liquid rushing out of the bottle.

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.

The long-awaited, complete guide to making gourmet cheeses is finally here! We welcome to our shelves the gorgeous and informative new book, Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking: The Ultimate Guide for Home-Scale and Market Producers by Gianaclis Caldwell.

Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking is more than just a cheese cookbook. Caldwell’s mission is to give aspiring cheesemakers the deep know-how to become intuitive, experimental — and really good at what they do.

Take a look at the book’s acclaimed design by browsing the introduction, here. Or a set of sample recipes, here.

Gianaclis was recently interviewed by Ann Saxelby on her radio show Cutting the Curd, which airs on the Heritage Radio Network. Listen here.

In the video below, made by the Oregon Cheese Guild a few years ago, Caldwell explains her philosophy: “Take the milk you have, and the environment that you have, and make as many different styles [of cheese] as possible, until you learn what your milk, your environment, and you, are happy making.”

It’s this careful and generous philosophy that informs her new book, Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking.

October is National Pickled Pepper Month!

If you put up some of your peppers this summer, they should be ready to open right about now.
Peppers aren’t the only produce you can pickle, of course. Preserving veggies in an acidic environment is one of the oldest and most reliable ways to keep the bounty of your growing season fresh and tasty through the winter.

Chelsea Green has seen a huge response this year to our new book The Art of Fermentation, but we have been publishing books on simple, healthful methods of preserving food for decades.

Enjoy your pickles, and enjoy our tasty selection of pickling, preserving, and pepper books! The books below are on sale for 25% off until October 12.

Reg. Price: $17.95 Sale Price: $13.46

Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail

Chasing Chiles looks at both the future of place-based foods and the effects of climate change on agriculture through the lens of the chile pepper—from the farmers who cultivate this iconic crop to the cuisines and cultural traditions in which peppers play a huge role.

Over a year-long journey, three pepper-loving gastronauts—an agroecologist, a chef, and an ethnobotanist—set out to find the real stories of America’s rarest heirloom chile varieties, and learn about the changing climate from farmers and other people who live by the pepper, and who, lately, have been adapting to shifting growing conditions and weather patterns. They put a face on an issue that has been made far too abstract for our own good.

.

Reg. Price: $25.00 Sale Price: $18.75

Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation

Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning offers more than 250 easy and enjoyable recipes featuring locally grown and minimally refined ingredients. It is an essential guide for those who seek healthy food for a healthy world.

Typical books about preserving garden produce nearly always assume that modern kitchen gardeners will boil or freeze their vegetables and fruits. Yet here is a book that goes back to the future—celebrating traditional but little-known French techniques for storing and preserving edibles in ways that maximize flavor and nutrition.

.

Reg. Price: $24.95 Sale Price: $18.71

Making the Most of Your Glorious Glut: Cooking, Storing, Freezing, Drying & Preserving Your Garden Produce

Making the most of your Glorious Glut is the answer to the perennial problem of an over-abundance of wonderful fruit and vegetables. From cucumbers to spinach, tomatoes to runner beans or blackcurrants to plums, most gardeners will recognize the sinking feeling that creeps over you when you realize you have had such a good harvest that you cannot actually face picking, cooking or eating any more. Even if you haven’t grown them yourself, it is easy to end up with too many fruits or vegetables after just one visit to the local pick-your-own center or a trip to a country hedgerow.

.

Reg. Price: $34.95 Sale Price: $26.21

Wild Flavors: One Chef’s Transformative Year Cooking from Eva’s Farm

The minute Didi Emmons, a chef from Boston, met Eva Sommaripa—a near legendary farmer whose 200-plus uncommon herbs, greens, and edible “weeds” grace the menus of many famous restaurants in the Northeast—something amazing happened. Not only did Eva’s Garden become Didi’s refuge and herb-infused Shangri-La, the two women also forged a lasting friendship that has blossomed and endured over time.

Wild Flavors follows a year at Eva’s Garden through the seasons. It showcases Emmons’s creative talents, featuring herbs (African basil, calaminth, lovage) and wild foods (autumn olives, wild roses, Japanese knotweed). The author provides growing or foraging information for each of the forty-six uncommon garden plants profiled, as well as details on prepping, storing, preserving, and health benefits. The wide-ranging recipes reflect the shifting seasonal harvest and are easy to follow, but best of all, Emmons shows us how these herbs, greens, and wild foods improve and transform the flavors in our food.

.

.

“I am truly knocked out by this wonderful book,” says Steven Jenkins, author of Cheese Primer. He goes on to say,

“Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking is simply superb, and well-nigh flawless. Caldwell’s voice comes through so clear, friendly, and free of clinicality. I have learned so much that I didn’t realize I didn’t know. In fact, the book is so good I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t even know how badly I needed it, and feel I am a vastly improved master cheesemonger for having been blessed with reading it.”

Gianaclis Caldwell’s new book has been praised for both its content and its gorgeous design. From Booklist’s review:

“The first point to make is that this oversize book is stunningly presented, with easy-on-the-eye text, helpfully broken up by subject headings, several on a page. And the photographic illustrations are in rich color and with clear detailing that makes the close-up shots comfortable on the eye as well. This handbook is for readers serious in their interest in and pursuit of home cheesemaking. With authority and clarity, the author delves deeply into the subject, explaining all the scientific aspects of the processes involved (in her words, ‘the beautiful interplay of science and art that goes into creating truly great cheeses’), including measuring acid development, aging cheese, adding flavors to cheese, and thinking about various ideas for equipment and work space.”

But you don’t have to take anyone else’s word for it. Take a look at the excerpt below, and learn a little about washed rind, surface-ripened cheeses.

Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking will be on sale for 25% off until October 7.

Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking: Washed Rind Surface-Ripened Cheeses

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.