For over thirty years, the Moosewood Restaurant
has been both a guide and a fellow adventurer rediscovering the use
of fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables. Most of us have been inspired
by their recipes, often adjusting our lifestyles to include more locally
grown produce.
The Moosewood Restaurant Kitchen Guide is a gardening book written for cooks who want fresh vegetables. The
author, David Hirsch, opens the world of gardening with a guide to more
than 75 vegetables and herbs, some of them heirloom varieties. And Hirsch
knows the romantce of the garden. To open his section on parsley, he
writes, "Parsley is to Moosewood what fairy dust is to Tinker Bell."
To describe the effect of lesser known Lamb's Ears, he says, "The
velvety, remarkably soft foliage of lamb's ears forms a textured carpet
of silvery green." With this romantic love of the garden, he includes
edible flowers for beauty is part of the romance of foods.
Gardens give us romance, but they require
discipline. Hirsch offers chapters devoted to design (which even analyzes
winter and summer sun!), to gardening techniques such as crop rotation,
seed starting, stretching the season, what to do about insects. Hirsch
includes every type of garden, be it a walled patio or a hillside garden.
He even helps the cook/gardener rise to the challenge of container gardening.
Moosewood is a restaurant, however, and Hirsch
is helping us grow so that we may cook. Each flower, herb or vegetable
is accompanied by culinary tips for its use in the kitchen. There are
seventy recipes included, all showcasing the fruits of the garden, and
all with that popular Moosewood touch.
The author has kindly allowed us to sample
these recipes:
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