The Locavore’s Bookshelf: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite writers. Her prose is graceful, eloquent and spare; she is the master of poetic description punctuated with the occasional baldly-stated observation of ugly, yet undeniable truths. With her training and background in evolutionary biology, Kingsolver cannot help but report on both the incredible beauty the natural world offers […]

Asparagus with Panch Phoron

Asparagus is one of those seasonal vegetables that we make gluttons of ourselves with when it is in season, until the point that we are nearly tired of it when it is gone. I say nearly tired, because I don’t think that I could get truly weary of asparagus. It is just so fresh and […]

Kashmiri Wild Mushroom Curry

Wild mushrooms are a seasonal indulgence which are a universal pleasure. Wherever edible wild mushrooms grow, people seek them out and create delectable dishes featuring their earthy flavors. This is true whether we are talking about the Appalachian highlands where folks gather meadow puffballs, shaggy inkcaps and the elusive morels, which they saute in butter […]

Up Close and Personal With Kimchi

Kimchi is considered the national dish of Korea. This broad category of lactic-acid fermented pickles is made of a wide variety of vegetables, fruits and sometimes seafoods, all brined in salt, flavored with herbs, garlic, ginger, and often, liberal amounts of red chili peppers. Some people find the array of types of kimchi intimidating; I […]

Baby Food Fun

I never really made baby food for Morganna when she was little. I had been raised on formula and jarred baby foods, and while I mostly breastfed Morganna, I didn’t really deviate from the idea that the baby food in jars was more nutritionally suitable for a baby than anything I could whip up in […]