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Book Cover for: In Winter's Kitchen, Beth Dooley

In Winter's Kitchen

Beth Dooley

Finalist:Minnesota Book Award -Memoir (2016)

Beth Dooley arrived in Minnesota from her native New Jersey with preconceptions about the Midwestern food scene. Having learned to cook in her grandmother's kitchen, shopping at farm stands and making preserves, she couldn't help but wonder, "Do people here really eat swampy broccoli, iceberg lettuce, and fried chicken for lunch everyday?"

These assumptions quickly faded as she began to explore farmers' markets and the burgeoning co-op scene in the Twin Cities, and eventually discovered a local food movement strong enough to survive the toughest winter. From the husband and wife who run one of the largest organic farms in the region to Native Americans harvesting wild rice, and from award-winning cheesemakers to Hmong immigrant farmers growing the best sweet potatoes in the country, a rich ecosystem of farmers, artisanal producers, and restaurateurs comes richly to life in this fascinating book.

In Winter's Kitchen "personalizes the path from farm to fork with heart and skill" (Wall Street Journal), demonstrating that even in a place with a short growing season, food grown locally and organically can be healthy, community-based, environmentally conscious, and--most of all--delicious.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Milkweed Editions
  • Publish Date: Dec 1st, 2015
  • Pages: 300
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.40in - 5.70in - 1.30in - 1.30lb
  • EAN: 9781571313416
  • Categories: Essays & NarrativesRegional & Cultural - American - Middle Western StatesEnvironmental Conservation & Protection - General

About the Author

Beth Dooley has been involved with the local food movement for over twenty years. She is the author of numerous award-winning cookbooks about Heartland food traditions and her travel and food writing has been featured in the Star Tribune, Fine Cooking, Delta Sky Magazine, and the North American Review. Beth and her husband have three sons and live in Minneapolis, MN.

Praise for this book

Praise for In Winter's Kitchen

"Dooley does much more than recycle familiar arguments for eating local; she personalizes the path from farm to fork with heart and skill. Unapologetically sentimental, deeply informative, and always practical . . . In Winter's Kitchen is essential reading."--Wall Street Journal

"Through her passionate yet straightforward and enticingly simple prose, Dooley invites us to share in her bounty. Like any good book about food, In Winter's Kitchen inspires us to cook."--Kansas City Star

"In this homage to local food, Dooley paints an exquisite portrait. Each of Dooley's 12 chapters showcases a different local food such as apples, wheat, chestnuts, cranberries, corn, wild rice, and sweet potatoes. The author includes a few recipes but explains that this is not a cookbook; rather, it is the story of the author building relationships with the 'small, independent farmers, processors, and chefs' who make their living building and contributing to local economies throughout the Upper Midwest."--Publishers Weekly

"Beth Dooley has written the book we need, a collection of stories about the foods we eat in winter, the season that is so often ignored, as if it doesn't count somehow, or even exist. Part memoir and part serious food study with beguiling but essential recipes, a wonderful work!"--Deborah Madison

"That Beth Dooley is a dynamite cook and journalist is a given in my book. She's the expert who is deep in the trenches with the farmers, the artisans, hunters and the gatherers, and every important dimension of food today. With this book you get outstanding recipes and get Beth sharing her stories, people, and insights."--Lynne Rossetto Kasper

"Beth Dooley's In Winter's Kitchen is a reflection on the way that we become at home in the world, by coming into deep relationship with our food, our farmers, our family, and the land. Each chapter celebrates the relationship between land and culture, from Anishinaabek wild rice to Hmong sweet potatoes. Her warm prose invites you to the kitchen table and reminds you of what we're all really hungry for: connection. I wanted to linger with the lush images, ripe with memory and mothering."--Robin Wall Kimmerer

"Beth Dooley creates culture in the kitchen, connecting readers, farmers, and food in the soup pot of biological diversity. Knowing where we are by the food we eat was the reality of the past and is the trend of the future. In Winter's Kitchen is a fascinating read; cultivating the knowledge we need to make diverse, local food a reliable reality--the most crucial task of our time. Read this book, and pay attention as if life depends on the truth it contains. It does."--Atina Diffley