Booklist Addition: The Viking in the Wheat Field

The Viking in the Wheat Field
A Scientist's Struggle to Preserve the World's Harvest
by Susan Dworkin
Walker & Company, 2010

For thirty years, Danish plant scientist Bent Skovmand served as adviser to dozens of countries and hunted for seeds with genes to resist disease and such environmental stresses as drought, flooding, and global warming.

In an era when multinational corporations often jealously guarded patents on plant breeding, Skovmand fought to keep his seed bank a free, open scientific exchange for breeders and farmers everywhere.

By telling the story of Skovmand and his colleagues, The Viking in the Wheat Field sheds welcome light on an agricultural sector--plant genetic resources--on which our food supply is crucially dependent.

The Viking in the Wheat Field
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Equinox: Life, Love, and Birds of Prey

Equinox: Life, Love, and Birds of Prey
by Dan O'Brien
Bison Books, 2010

Recently republished in paperback, this memoir about falconry is also an evocative immersion into life on the Dakota prairies.

"The heartbreak of western South Dakota is made greater by the country's mystic power to generate optimism," author Dan O'Brien writes. "Even people who have lived here their whole lives - and know better - find themselves counting on a chain of events that is completely beyond their control. Unpredictable weather is the big spoiler."

Set against the backdrop of his fiftieth birthday - a personal "equinox" - O'Brien tells the story of a year spent training hunting falcons. The relationships between man and raptors and hunting dogs are expertly described, providing an insightful look at a little-known sport and a unique way of living.

Glossary terms specific to raptors and falcony, such as "deck feathers" (the middle two feathers in a bird's tail) and "bate" (to fly from the fist or a perch and be brought up short by the leash) are defined in small inserts into the body of the text as they appear.

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Classic Cookbooks: Adventures in Cooking with Health Foods

Adventures in Cooking with Health Foods
by Nancy Sutton
Pyramid, 1972

Food grown naturally and cooked with a gourmet's touch! That's the happy combination offered in this lively, luscious book.

Mrs. Sutton puts together nature's own whole grains and vegetables with the gourmet flavorings of wines, spices and herbs.

She shows in easy-to-follow recipes how to prepare unforgettable dishes - from macadamia nut cheese filling and beets in pomegranate sauce to rose petal sherbet and carob coconut Easter eggs.

If you want to start eating healthier, tastier meals, began by reading this book - and do on to prove in your own kitchen that the natural way with food is the most delicious way..

Adventures in Cooking with Health Foods
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The Master Your Metabolism Cookbook

Best Choice in Meat, Fish & Eggs; Alaskan Wild Salmon

Salmon is an all-around nutritional rock star. High in protein, it is a rich source of selenium, which is critical to your thyroid, and vitamin D, which helps preserve muscle. But the main reason it's my preferred choice of animal protein is its very high level of omega-3 fats. Omega-3s regulate your heart rhythm, decrease blood clotting, dilate your blood vessels, decrease your blood pressure and triglycerides, and fight inflammation. Yu need to eat only two servings of salmon a wek to cut your risk of heart disease dramatically.

Review: The Master Your Metabolism Cookbook
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Classic Cookbooks: The Natural Foods Cookbook

The Natural Foods Cookbook
by Beatrice Trum Hunter
Pyramid, 1975

The unique Natural Foods Cookbook is the first book of its kind. Comprehensive and complete, it is filled with easy-to-prepare recipes using only whole natural foods.

Over 2,000 dishes that are different, exciting delicious... for people who want to taste what they eat.

The Natural Foods Cookbook is richly full of foods with the wholesome old-fashioned flavor that comes from using whole, natural foods - the fresh taste that many people yearn for and that many others, whose palates may have been dulled by "modern" foods, will now have the thrill of discovering..

The Natural Foods Cookbook
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Classic Cookbooks: Joan Lay's Book of Salads

The best source of vitamins and mineral salts is raw food, and there is no more appetizing way of eating such food than in salads.

This book includes a wide range of exciting vegetables with which to experiment - including salsify, seakale, kohl rabi, fennel, peppers and red cabbage.

Here is an original and varied selection of salads - all vegetarian - including Hors d'Oeuvre, Green and Side Salads, Vegetable and Rice Salads, Salads with Fruit, Blended or Liquidized Salads, and a selection of TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein) Salads.

Joan Lay's Book of Salads by Joan Lay
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Nature Stories

Nature Stories
by Jules Renard
The New York Review of Books, 2010

“You can see one there, lying down, stretched out like a lovely noodle” is Jules Renard's single-sentence portrait of a worm, one of about four dozen sketches included in his classic Nature Stories, newly translated from the French by Douglas Parmée.

An early 20th century novelist and playwright, Renard published the first edition of his Histoires naturelles in 1896. Subsequent editions were illustrated by the likes of Toulouse-Latrec and Pierre Bonnard, whose ink-brush images are included in this English edition.

Consisting of mostly short verse and prose poem celebrations of flora and fauna, the collection also includes a couple longer pieces on hunting and fishing, which are not complimentary. Renard deftly anthropomorphizes the plants and animals around him and clearly empathizes with their existences.

Continued at Review: Nature Stories

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Pomodoro!

Pomodoro!
A History of the Tomato in Italy
by David Gentilcore
Columbia University Press, 2010

From its introduction from the New World in the mid-sixteenth century to its prominence in Italian cuisine 300 years later, the tomato as a culinary staple in southern Europe has long and viny history. This book recounts how changes in social values, beliefs and economic condition allowed the fruit to become accepted and eventually dominate Italian cookery.

Pomodoro! A History of the Tomato in Italy
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Christmas Wishes

Nostalgic Christmas Fireplace

For modern suburban dwellings that did not come with the nostalgia of built-in fireplaces, cardboard replicas were available to provide the suitable hearthside touch. The fake fireplace made a handy place to hang stockings and provided a mantel to decorate, and it usually even came with a bulb and tinfoil reflector to give the impression of a flickering fire.

But unlike the real thing, rather than having to keep it clean, when Christmas was over, it could be folded flat into its storage carton and packed away in the attic or garage for the next eleven months.

from Christmas Wishes: A Catalog of Vintage Holiday Treats
by Tim Hollis


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Nostalgic Fireplace Decoration