 Title: The Modern Gardener: A practical guide for creating a beautiful and creative garden We bought a subscription to the streaming service BritBox back in 2020 during the pandemic to watch the old Poirot series by Agatha Christie. We were soon transfixed by “Gardener’s World” and loved the segments with horticulturist, author and presenter Frances Tophill. It didn’t take long for us to start looking for her books. Our first buy and this is a delightful book that invites us to explore the world of gardening in a modern and sustainable way.
Frances goes beyond just beautiful gardening and encourages us to engage with our outdoor spaces in a meaningful way. She emphasizes the importance of choosing plants that not only look visually stunning but also serve multiple purposes: supporting wildlife, reducing our carbon footprint, and supplying materials for various aspects of our lives. From growing edible plants to creating essential products from natural materials, Frances’ approach is both creative and practical. Whether you’re an experienced gardener or a beginner, “The Modern Gardener” offers valuable insights, projects, and recipes to help you make the most of your garden. It’s a beautiful blend of horticultural knowledge and eco-conscious practices, making it a must-read for anyone passionate about gardening. If, like us, you’re ready to transform your outdoor space into a harmonious and productive haven, this is definitely the book for you. Highly recommended!
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TITLE: PASTORAL SONG: A Farmer’s Journey  A great read celebrating what it means to love the land and have pride in your place. A celebration of three generations of farmers and their faith, hope and love of the land. Take a trip along with the author to their family farm in England’s Lake District. A patchwork of crops and meadows grazed with livestock and hedgerows teaming with wildlife. Yet this land our author inherited was anything but the utopia we dream of.
This is a story of an inheritance. An inheritance that affects each one of us. It brings us into the world of industrial farming that is bringing our world closer and closer to collapse. Yet this story is one of hope. “We can build a new English Pastoral, not a utopia, but somewhere decent for us all.” The author writes as he does his best to restore the life that has almost vanished and builds a future for his family and the rest of us as well. Here’s a favorite passage from the book: “It is possible to work the land and still have healthy soil, rivers, wetlands, woodlands, and scrub. We can have fields full of wildflowers and grasses, swarming with insects, butterflies, and birds. We just have to want this enough to legislate for it and pay for it. To do this we have to opt out of the cheap food dogma that has driven farming and food policy for the past few decades. We might have to stop gullibly accepting every new technology and new ideology, and care instead about some fairly simple old technologies and ideas… like valuing mixed farming and enlightened land stewardship.” The cost is not cheap, but it is sustainable. It is worth it for the future of our farms and our planet. We don’t need to build a utopia, but simply somewhere decent for us all! THE OXFORD COMPANION TO SPIRITS & COCKTAILS  To say this book is an exhaustive exploration of the world of Spirits and Cocktails would be an understatement. Part encyclopedia, part history, part recipe book and possibly even a door stop, this book is huge coming in at 834 pages and a fairly hefty price tag at $65.00 (USD) but worth every penny if you enjoy a good cocktail and want to learn it’s history and enjoy the journey that comes from discovery.
This mighty collection of alcoholic drinks and bartending techniques from around the world gives clear descriptions of all the myriad methods of distillation, fermentation and ageing and includes a plethora of details on the cocktail renaissance of the past 20 years. Covering drinks from Absinthe to Zombies, it’s all about the history, culture and consumption of cocktails from around the world. You have so much to learn, and the authors are dream teachers that drive you to want to keep turning the pages. What’s in this glass? That really is the question the authors try to answer for us. There’s chemistry, engineering, science and history in every glass of spirits we consume, and we learn those stories and our lives are better for it. While not a book that you will simply sit down and read, it’s a “rabbit hole” kind of book. You read one entry and find out a little part of the story and then you are off searching for the next part. It’s a beautiful book filled with illustrations and photographs and over 1,000 entries. It’s encyclopedic and readable and downright fun. A great addition to any foodie library. Cheers!  TASTE: My Life Through Food If you ever wanted to sit down with the incredible Stanley Tucci, drink a glass of wine, share a meal, and hear stories of his life and adventures of discovery then this is the book to savor. It is filled with the anecdotes, recipes, joys, sorrows, ups and downs of a life well-loved as well as an exploration of his ongoing love of food. Especially, his love of Italian food, the food of his ancestors.
We started our introduction to with TASTE: My Life Through Food while enjoying a @smithsoniaSA webinar featuring the incredible Barefoot Contessa: @inagarten as she interviews @stanleytucci at his home in London. The book had not yet been delivered but we were hooked. Ina Garten is such a joy, yet to watch her literally “fan girl” over Stanley Tucci was fantastic and worth the cost of admission. By the way, if you’ve never experienced a @smithsonianSA webinar, do yourself a favor and check them out! We picked up this copy at our favorite bookseller, THE WEBSTER GROVES BOOKSHOP - Home and we devoured it just as we have devoured many of the recipes held inside. It’s one of those books. Hard to categorize. Cookbook? Yes! Memoir? You bet! But really, it’s like sitting down and having an intimate conversation with a true legend and being taken on a ride through their lives all while enjoying wine and food vicariously through them. What could be better? Stanley Tucci’s life could and should be a movie. He’s lived so much for someone who is just now entering his 60s. He still has so much to give, and we look forward to watching his continued journey. BLACK, WHITE AND THE GREY: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant  This isn’t an easy book to classify. Is it a cookbook? Yes and no. There are recipes for sure and they are really good by the way. Is it a memoir? Yes and no. It does tell life stories but not in the way you might imagine from a traditional memoir. In my mind it is the story of reflection and change. It’s the story of two people with great skill, imagination and talent who come together from vastly different backgrounds to create something brand new from something quite old. “The Grey” is a restaurant located in Savannah, Georgia and located in the old Greyhound Bus Terminal. The bus terminal has a long history in Savannah and much of that history is tainted with the racism that was and, unfortunately, still exists in our country today. The good news is the partnership of Johno Morisano, a businessperson and entrepreneur and his amazing chef/partner Mashama Bailey created something new on the edge of Savannah’s historic downtown business district. Mashama Bailey is an African-American chef born in the Bronx and raised in both Queens, New York and Savannah, Georgia. She was trained at “Prune” the iconic New York restaurant. Her partner, John O. (Johno) Morisano is a multiple entrepreneur and business leader who purchased “The Grey” without a chef but eventually convinced Mashama Bailey to give their partnership a chance. It worked! The book is part cookbook, part discovery, part primer on how to open a restaurant and ultimately a reflection on how two different Americans can come together from different backgrounds and create a successful restaurant and encourage each other to put it all on the line and take a leap of faith. MY PLACE AT THE TABLE: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris  How does a boy who grew up in Connecticut move to Paris and become a world class food critic? That’s the story of MY PLACE AT THE TABLE: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris by Alexander Lobrano. I first discovered Alec Lobrano in the pages of the Wall Street Journal where he shared his delicious recipe for a rustic Ratatouille. I was hooked! I found the book at my local bookstore: The Webster Groves Bookshop and couldn’t put it down.
The story begins when Alec finds out about a job opening at Women’s Wear Daily and applies for the job simply because it was in Paris. He doesn’t really speak French and he knows little about fashion but that isn’t enough to dissuade him from pursuing his dream of becoming a restaurant critic. “Well, you’re not going to spend the rest of your life writing about dresses, are you?” The question certainly defined the journey. Alec responds, “I certainly hope not!” The adventure begins in a moving, often funny, ramble through the bistros of French gastronomy. Alec was one of the first critics to eschew the haute cuisine of the established French cooking world and embrace the city’s bistros and quickly became entranced by the chefs and food workers who became his muse and guided him through the revolution of food happening in France. Soon, he made quite a name for himself as he lets the world in on the new trails being blazed by young chefs shaking things up with exciting dishes influenced by international ingredients. Along the way we share in Alec’s life and loves both for food and everything else. He discovers himself as he struggles to overcome a childhood secret, he tried to suppress for a very long time. Funny, poignant, and filled with some of the food worlds’ biggest names including Julia Child, James Beard and Paul Bocuse. Alec writes as if he talking to a new friend over a bottle of fine wine about his life, his loves, his infatuations, and dreams. He lets us in on his secrets and we adore him even more for it. This is a love letter to Paris and to food and to a life well lived. Bravo! |
AuthorJust a super cool old couple who love to cook and eat and drink and read in their Carondelet Kitchen in South Saint Louis, Missouri! Archives
January 2024
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