Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets

I am on box #3 for my CSA, and have to say this book is the book I use the most. Three great spring recipes so far, all very easy to prepare and two for ingredients that few of my other cookbooks cared to mention even in passing (nettles and sorrel). I live in Minnesota, and I was concerned buying a California based book, but the utility has been outstanding. The Greens chapter is particularly useful, as we have a CSA (Harmony Valley Farms) that loves to pile on the greens. I agree with the other Minneapolis reviewer - this combined with "Asparagus to Zucchini" decodes many an interesting CSA box. Add in "Vegetable Love" and you are really set.

I bring out this cookbook every week after shopping at the farmers market, and it encouraged us to try unfamiliar looking greens and vegetables. Living in California, none of the ingredients are out of reach, and we find most if not all of the ingredients at our local market and grocery stores. Unlike some other cookbooks, Crescent Dragonwagon for one, there are no faulty techniques, if you follow her instructions you get flawless results. And after a couple of tries, you can substitute and experiment. Her recipes do tend to be classic french with plenty of butter and other dairy, so as folks who watch their cholesterol, I have substituted olive oil for the butter and tofu for the eggs in some recipes with no ill effects. I would suggest that if you are a serious cook you would have an extensive herb garden of your own anyway, so that finding ingredients like marjoram, sage, lemon thyme and sorrel do not mean a trip to a specialty grocer. Unlike the Chez Panisse cookbook, this one is suitable for vegetarians to use too, since while it does include recipes for market meats and fish, most veg recipes do not include meat stocks, bacon etc type of flavor enhancers like you find in the Chez Panisse cookbook. As a vegetarian myself, I always hesitate to adapt those wondering whether the results will be bland and missing the oomph when you are rushing to get a meal on the table.

Over the years I have come to rely on Deborah Madison's cookbooks as those where I can make any recipe in the book and the result will be perfect. Purchased when we joined a "Community Supported Agriculture" and began getting a weekly box of more and more unusual vegetables, this book is perfect for understanding certain vegetables: when they are at their best, and how to prepare them. After "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," no Madison cookbook will ever again seem encyclopedic enough!!

Deborah Madison's "Local Flavors" hews to her longtime trajectory along the path of encouraging her readers to make use of what's fresh. Of course what's fresh is always better than what's been shipped in, and Madison focuses on this edict with this cookbook chock-full of recipes making use of fresh, fresh, fresh produce from the farmer's market.The cookbook is handsomely done, with easy recipes and numbered directions (so helpful when you look away and then need to find your place again). While readers on the coasts or in big cities will have no problem finding the ingredients they need, those in smaller or rural areas will have some difficulty. Ingredients that are regularly called for here include palm sugar, blood oranges, lemon verbena, pineapple sage, chantarelles, orange flower water, and more. Still, the recipes are imaginative, the photography sumptuous, and Madison's enthusiasm for her subject positively contagious.

I have to admit that Deborah Madison is my favorite cook (Alice Waters comes in second). I have all of her cookbooks and give them to family members as gifts. In her last two major cookbooks, Deborah seems to have gotten to the heart of cooking. Her recipes are straight forward, the combinations of flavors well planned and the results fantastic. I've tried many of the recipes in this cookbook and would repeat every one. The ease of these recipes lends itself to experimenting with what's in season and what's growing in my garden. This is a book for someone who loves food from the earth. Most, but not all, of the recipes are vegetarian. This is one of my top 5 cookbooks!