Cooking Fresh from the Bay Area: The Bay Area's Best Recipes for Eating Local, Organic Produce at Its Seasonal Best (Eating Fresh Guides) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 096736700X ISBN 13: 9780967367002

Publisher: Eating Fresh Pubns, 2000

Synopsis

More than 80 recipes from the region'¬?s most acclaimed chefs, handpicked for their commitment to local, seasonal, and organic ingredients.

About this title

About the Author

Fran McManus and Wendy Rickard bring 20 years experience in publishing, marketing, and graphic design for natural- and organic-food enterprises. Fran McManus spearheaded a number of consumer-education and outreach programs on subjects ranging from organic agriculture to bovine growth hormone to genetic diversity in food crops to organic gardening. She is editor of NOFA-NJ's Eating Fresh from the Organic Garden State (1998). Wendy Rickard is editor of the award-winning OnTheInternet magazine for the Internet Society. In 1995, Wendy was recognized by BusinessWeek Magazine as "a pioneer on the digital frontier" for her work in electronic media.

Reviews

McManus is also the editor of Eating Fresh from the Organic Garden State, but the San Francisco Bay AreaDAlice Waters territoryDis perhaps most closely related to the movement championing cooking and eating fresh organic products from local growers and farmers. Waters is not one of the contributors to this volume, but there are recipes from 20 other well-known area chefs, from Paul Bertolli (Oliveto) to Judy Rodgers (Zuni). There are also essays on sustainable agriculture, the Slow Food movement, and other related topics by various authorities, and sidebars provide additional useful information. For area libraries and other larger or specialized collections.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Eat Fresh, Eat Local

By Wendy Rickard

Alice Waters, the doyenne of the create-your-menu-straight-from-the-garden movement, says simply, "They get it once they eat it." What they get is the intense flavor that comes from ingredients picked fresh and grown in a caring and respectful manner. Like Waters, chefs, farmers, food enthusiasts, environmentalists, and educators across the country are making the flavorful connection between what we eat and how--and even where--that food is grown.

While many people believe that eating from the farm--particularly the organic farm--offers the healthiest diet, the best reasons to go local, seasonal, and organic are freshness and flavor. In homes bursting with cutting-edge cookware and high-tech kitchen gadgets, there is not a single mechanical contrivance that can replicate the flavor of a peach grown in living, chemical-free soil and eaten within 48 hours of being picked. That's why chefs are turning to local farms for ingredients and why home cooks are shopping at farmers markets or joining community-supported-agriculture (CSA) farms.

How often do you walk through your produce section noticing where the pears were grown? or the avocados? or the peppers? Try it. You may be surprised to learn how much of what you're eating is grown thousands of miles away. Small, independent farmers are put at risk when they are forced to compete in a global market. While California produces a wide array of fresh produce year-round, it should not be taken for granted that your local farms are going to be there next year.

For years, rich, productive farmland in this country has been destroyed to make way for new construction while farming dissolved into a centralized, factorylike endeavor. In the world of corporate farming, there is little incentive to grow any of the countless varieties of heirloom tomatoes in existence or to choose flavor over so-called cost-efficiency. Only small family farms--the ones that benefit from and contribute to your community--are going to work to keep the soil alive, to grow the most flavorful produce, and to raise the best-tasting farm animals in the most humane way possible. Read how the farmers in this book care for the land they farm. Is there any question in your mind that theirs is the food you want on your table?

Finally, food is about being nourished, both physically and spiritually. It's about sitting around a table with loved ones at holidays and mealtimes. It's about the pleasure we feel hunting for the best ingredients. We remember the places our parents and grandparents shopped because no one else had it fresher. They knew the farmers, the purveyors, the butchers, and the shopkeepers. The products they bought were more than just brands; there were real people behind those brands, and often those people were friends and neighbors.

Farms add beauty to the landscape, provide jobs in their communities, and create educational opportunities for children. And when you live near a small family farm, you're steps away from fresh, delicious produce. Choose to keep your local farms part of your community.

Edition details

• Publisher: Eating Fresh Pubns
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 096736700X
• ISBN 13: 9780967367002
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 178
• Editor: Mcmonus Fran, Rickard Wendy