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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | 635 KER | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | 635 KER | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
With more than two dozen cookbooks and hundreds of television shows, lectures, and personal appearances devoted to promoting healthful cooking, award-winning chef and former 'Galloping Gourmet' Graham Kerr literally starts from the ground up in this engaging, inspiring, and highly informative introduction to the joys of the kitchen garden-and the pleasures of the table that start with growing your own food. While Kerr taps into the current trend of sustainability, eating locally and organically, and eschewing fast food, he recognizes that today's home cooks are savvier and more discerning than their predecessors in the back-to-the-land movement. And in this day of rampant obesity and related diseases, he understands how critical taking these vital steps toward wellness can be.
Growing at the Speed of Life takes you through the first year in his kitchen garden, sharing the lessons learned and the wisdom received from his circle of local knowledge providers. From digging up his 'south lawn' and putting together a greenhouse to planting his first seeds and harvesting and sharing his first crop with others in need, Kerr provides a whirlwind tour through his gardening adventures. Along the way, he profiles sixty common-and not-so-common but readily available-garden vegetables, fruits, and herbs with useful advice and recommendations for care and feeding.
Once the harvest is done, Kerr takes you into the kitchen, offering guidance on the best cooking methods to create appealing dishes in his inimitable and spirited style. He includes more than one hundred recipes that are as simple and elegant as they are healthful-and that will certainly entice you to increase the amount of plant foods in your diet.
Author Notes
Authors Bio, not available
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Kerr, best known as the Galloping Gourmet television cooking personality, serves up new recipes and reflections on gardening in this lighthearted cookbook. Like many amateur gardeners, he was motivated to grow his own food by a desire both to improve his diet and to support local, sustainable, seasonal agriculture. In a compact chapter, he explains everything the impatient beginning gardener needs to get started. This section includes basic information on soil improvement, pest management, watering and weeding, germinating, composting, and crop rotation. The bulk of the book is devoted to detailed growing information and recipes for more than 60 fruits and vegetables. Fans of Kerr's lively style on the Food Network and in his cookbooks (Day-by-Day Gourmet) will enjoy this combination of jaunty gardening adventure and healthy and diverse recipes. Line drawings throughout. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Galloping Gourmethost Kerr (Day-by-Day Gourmet Cookbook, 2007, etc.) offers the cautionary tale of his first kitchen garden.Around the time Michelle Obama broke ground on the White House garden, the author was also trying his hand at the "earth-to-table process." Kerr relates to any would-be gardeners his story of novice green-thumbing and provides a helpful "Need-to-Know" section for others to follow. He details the cultivation and cooking of 60 edible plants, the majority of which are accompanied by a handful of recipes and supplementary nutritional information. Although the author aims to inspire others to increase their daily fruit and vegetable intake, Kerr's labor- and money-intensive trials may turn off some potential gardeners. And while he may intend the book to reach out to space-starved city-dwellers in addition to rural plotters, the author provides little useful advice for an economical and efficient urban kitchen garden. Kerr's account of his first growing season is one of experience, not expertise, but he pulls it off with an enjoyably humorous and familiar tone. The book, however, falls short as a reference work for novices; the author often suggests reaching out to a "local knowledge expert," leaving much of the research up to the reader, even in the important Need-to-Know list. But he does provide helpful instructions for how each fruit and vegetable should be handled once it arrives in the kitchen, whether from one's own garden or the greenmarket down the street.A book lacking in gardening know-how but quite useful for its cooking tips.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
