Cooking with Shelburne Farms: Food and Stories from Vermont

Always on a search for a good apple pie recipe and WOW I found one here. It was fast, easy and delicious. It even looked like the photograph in the book.

This is a beautiful cookbook! The recipes are a great mix of rich and complex to earthy, fresh and simple. There are also wonderful pieces between the recipes on Vermont farmers and artisan food makers and the featured local ingredients which are fun and informative reading. I might add these recipes are certainly not just for the local Vermonter as I'm out in California and easily able to cook the recipes by occasionally using a suggested alternate ingredient. I've made a number of recipes from the book already and can't wait to make more, some will certainly become standards in my house.

I'm a person who loves reading cookbooks as much as cooking from them, and this cookbook fully satisfies both passions. The beautiful layout, intriguing personal profiles, gorgeous photos, and engaging recipes make for great reading. And then the recipes! Although the book celebrates the regional largesse of Vermont, it is by no means restricted to a New England audience (I don't live anywhere near New England). The recipes are a wonderful balance of accessible and unusual, and are definitely written for the home cook -- you'll find plenty of recipes that you want to make for dinner tonight! Some of my favorites include the Maple and Black Pepper Chicken, Salmon with Creamed Mushrooms and Kohlrabi, Cheddar and Herb Biscuits (I'm nibbling on one while writing this), Bacon and Goat Cheese Free-Form tart, Roasted Cauliflower with Golden Raisins and Pine Nuts, Buttermilk Plum Sherbet -- and the Maple Sugar Blondie recipe alone is worth the price of the book!

This is a beautiful and delicious tribute to eating locally grown and produced foods. The recipes are clear and tasty---something for every occassion from casual suppers to holiday-worthy desserts. The prose and photographs express a passion for Vermont and for preserving our farms. A great addition to any collection and a wonderful gift idea.