Oct

12

Cooking with Shelburne Farms: Food and Stories from Vermont

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Cooking with Shelburne Farms

The focus is on fresh, local food, and Shelburne Farms does it beautifully. The working farm, which started out as a model agricultural estate built by Dr. William Seward Webb and Eliza Vanderbilt Webb in 1886, is a National Historic Landmark and environmental education center. They raise a herd of Brown Swiss dairy cows for making award-winning cheeses, a flock of English sheep for sheering and eating, and they have a sugarhouse for making their own maple syrup for use at the Inn. In keeping with their educational goals, they offer programs for children and adults designed to teach about the workings of the natural world and sustainable agriculture.

Recently Shelburne Farms released a new cookbook, Cooking with Shelburne Farms: Food and Stories from Vermont, and in an interesting twist, co-authors Melissa Pasanen and Rick Gencarelli structured the cookbook in a way that highlights the local agriculture of Vermont rather than focusing on meal courses. Chapters focus on Savory Milk and Cheese, Savory Maple, Early Spring and Summer Greens, Lamb, Wild Mushrooms, Game and Fish, Pork, Root-Cellar Vegetables, Apples, Sweet Milk, and Sweet Maple, and all of these ingredients are available either on the farm or locally. Each chapter has a story or two about local food production that gives the reader a sense of Vermont agriculture. For example, in “Listening to the Land,” the reader learns about wildcrafters Les Hook and Nova Kim, who seek out wild mushrooms and edible and medicinal plants and have done so for 27 years.

The very first recipe is for churned butter Read more

Oct

10

Great Source for Cookbooks: Jessica’s Biscuit, www.ecookbooks.com

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I began my cookbook collection when I was in high school with the purchase of Farm Journal’s Homemade Breads, the 1985 version. I wasn’t an avid cook or even an occasional cook, but I loved bread (still do) and thought that someday I would learn how to make my own. Well, I did learn how to make my own bread, and from that simple beginning my cookbook collection has slowly grown over the years to well over 100, although I’m not exactly sure of the current number. The last count two years ago come in somewhere around 130, and my collection has definitely grown since then!

I’m always on the lookout for great deals on cookbooks, and I’ve picked up used books from eBay, yard sales, or Freecycle, and years ago I belonged to a cookbook-of-the-month type club. Recently I came across a great source for cookbooks that has been alive and well for quite some time but is a new find for me. Jessica’s Biscuit® has been selling cookbooks for 27 years, first out of the family living room and now in a large warehouse in Massachusetts. This boutique bookseller focuses on cookbooks and caters to cookbook collectors. Their selection of over 14,000 titles runs the gamut, including new releases, bestsellers, out-of-print or hard-to-find, and the skills levels range from basic to gourmet. They do offer a few other genres of books as well as their own label of single origin coffee beans, but selling cookbooks is their specialty.

They offer everyday discounts at 20-75% off retail, and they have some nice perks for buyers Read more

Oct

9

Subscribe and Save on Amazon.com

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Amazon Grocery has a great beta feature called Subscribe & Save, which makes shopping much easier for those basic items that we use and restock frequently. It allows you to set up subscriptions to have items automatically shipped to you on a schedule that you specify, which you can cancel at any time. You only pay when an item ships. The convenience alone was enough for me to check it out, because I hate running out of certain things, but they top off the offer with free shipping on every Subscribe & Save shipment plus a discount on Amazon’s everyday price. Can’t beat that!

I have found the service particularly useful for dry goods such as diapers and paper products, but especially (sorry guys) feminine hygiene products. Most of the items are sold in bulk, so a shipment may actually have multiple packages of the item. Each item varies, so make sure you read the product description carefully.

Amazon has many products available for Subscribe & Save, and here’s a few of their current deals (all prices US$):

Sep

17

The Spatulatta Cookbook

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The Spatulatta Cookbook When I was invited to review the recently released Spatulatta Cookbook, my answer was an enthusiastic “Yes!” and I couldn’t wait to see what the girls from Spatulatta had cooked up.

Spatulatta.com is a James Beard award-winning website with video cooking lessons for kids. The hosts are Isabella and Olivia Gerasole, sisters ages 11 and 9, and they do all the video demonstrations. If you have not seen the website, you must go and visit it because the videos are lively and fun. The girls, who are naturals in front of a camera, prepare foods while their mom and other guests help out with things like cutting, assembling the food processor, and working with the stove or oven. Spatulatta has webcasts demonstrating recipes and basic skills, such as separating eggs and chopping an onion.

The full-color cookbook, which was released this month, begins with a basic skills overview for such tasks as chopping, shredding and grating cheese, measuring, and food safety, and also includes information on essential cooking tools and measurements. Read more

May

3

Cooktop Cover Review

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Cooktop Cover

UPDATE August 17, 2007: Bill confirmed that they have restored communications with the outside world and have shipped all orders that were held up due to the phone/internet problems. They are in business and have a new video on the website demonstrating the product. Check it out!

UPDATE August 15, 2007: After receiving word from one of my readers that the folks at Cooktopcover.com are unreachable, I tried to contact them myself via phone and email. I was also unable to reach them via phone so I tried sending an email through their registrar. Bill Miller responded, letting me know that they are indeed still in business, they were just unfortunate to be caught up in the Sunrocket bankruptcy, which suddenly and without notice left them stranded without phone or internet access. They are getting all their services restored with a new provider and should be fully operational soon. Thanks for your patience while they sort out their situation.

When we moved into the new house in March, I posted about adapting to the new kitchen and showed a photo of the cooktop in the island, noting that there was no safety lock on it to prevent the boys from turning on a burner. Our previous kitchen had a gas range with an electronic system which locked out both the oven and the cooking surface, a safety feature that we found to be very helpful. So one of our first purchases for the house was a cooktop cover designed to cover the entire cooking surface and hide the burners and knobs.

After shopping around for a bit, we ordered our cover from www.cooktopcover.com, which is based in North Carolina. They have one standard size that fits many 30-inch cooktops, and it’s reasonably priced at $99 (cheaper than a trip to the ER), although you can order a custom sized cover for additional cost. The cover is made from pressed 0.08″ thick aluminum alloy, has industrial powder coat paint, and weighs about 8 pounds. Supposedly it will support up to 190 pounds, not that I ever plan to put a 190 pound object on top of it, but it’s comforting to know that it can stand up to a bit of abuse. Read more

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