The Cafe Brenda Cookbook or How to Pick a Peach

The Cafe Brenda Cookbook: Seafood and Vegetarian Cuisine

Author: Brenda Langton

For more than twenty-five years, Brenda Langton has been serving her customers in the Twin Cities a delicious blend of American and international cuisines made from the finest ingredients. This book contains her most requested recipes, including Miso and Herb Pâté, Poached Rainbow Trout, and Burgundy Mushroom Stew. Desserts, like Almond-Hazelnut Tart and Chocolate Carrot Cake, feature reduced amounts of dairy products and natural sweeteners.The Cafe Brenda Cookbook brings the tastiest secrets of one of Minneapolis's best-loved restaurants into your own home. Brenda Langton is the owner and chef of Cafe Brenda in Minneapolis and has been a natural foods restaurateur for twenty-five years. Margaret Stuart is a horticulturist, natural foods expert, and pastry chef.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

This book will be of interest to three groups of readers: lovers of light and attractive food, vegetarians and collectors of Minnesota recipes.

Minnesota Monthly

...a feast for Cafe Brenda regulars and uninitiated...recipes, ingredients and preparations are amply explained.

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How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table

Author: Russ Parsons

Critics greeted Russ Parsons' first book, How to Read a French Fry, with raves. The New York Times praised it for its "affable voice and intellectual clarity"; Julia Child lauded it for its "deep factual information."Now in How to Pick a Peach, Parsons takes on one of the hottest food topics today. Good cooking starts with the right ingredients, and nowhere is that more true than with produce. Should we refrigerate that peach? How do we cook that artichoke? And what are those different varieties of pears? Most of us aren't sure. Parsons helps the cook sort through the produce in the market by illuminating the issues surrounding it, revealing intriguing facts about vegetables and fruits in individual profiles about them, and providing instructions on how to choose, store, and prepare these items. Whether explaining why basil, citrus, tomatoes, and potatoes should never be refrigerated, describing how Dutch farmers revolutionized the tomato business in America, exploring organic farming and its effect on flavor, or giving tips on how to recognize a ripe melon, How to Pick a Peach is Parsons at his peak.

Publishers Weekly

Equal parts cookbook, agricultural history, chemistry lesson and produce buying guide, this densely packed book is a food-lover's delight. California food writer Parsons (How to Read a French Fry) begins with a fascinating tale of agribusiness trumping our taste buds en route to supplying year-round on-demand produce, and how farmer's markets are bringing back both appreciation of, and access to, local and seasonal foods. He then takes readers on a delectable season-by-season produce tour, from springtime Artichokes Stuffed with Ham and Pine Nuts to midwinter Candied Citrus Peel, and provides readers with the lowdown on where each fruit or vegetable is grown and how to choose, store and prepare it. Along the way, he detours into low-stress jam making, the chemistry of tomato flavor, a portrait of two peach-growing stars of the Santa Monica farmer's market and why cucumbers make some people burp. For readers who have always wondered where their food comes from, why it tastes the way it does and how to pick a peach, a melon or a green bean, this book will be an invaluable resource. (May)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Table of Contents:

The Vegetables and Fruits Alphabetically     xi
The Recipes by Category     xiii
Introduction     1
The Plant Designers: Factories in the Field     21
Spring
Artichokes     35
Asparagus     47
Onions, Leeks and Garlic     59
Peas and Fava Beans     74
Salad Greens     86
Strawberries     101
Big Farmers, Small Farmers: The Cost of Compromise     113
Summer
Corn     129
Cucumbers     140
Eggplants     146
Green Beans     154
Summer Squash     160
Tomatoes     169
Cherries     181
Grapes     190
Melons     198
Peaches and Nectarines     209
Plums     218
Growers and Global Competition: Reinventing the Tomato     223
Fall
Broccoli and Cauliflower     235
Mushrooms     248
Peppers     256
Winter Squash     267
Apples     279
Pears, Asian Pears and Quinces     288
Persimmons and Figs     304
Market Corrections: The Return of the Small Farmer     311
Winter
Cabbages and Brussels Sprouts     321
Cooking Greens     330
Potatoes     339
Root Vegetables     349
Lemons and Limes     364
Mandarins (Tangerines), Grapefruits and Pummelos     376
Oranges     384
Index     395