“In our industry, we stand on the backs of so many different people that we tend to forget. Some of the most foundational folks who really let us, allow us to do what we do,” says Craig Becker, Somerton Estate’s general manager and director of winemaking. He’s specifically referring to the estate’s permanent crew of about 24 vineyard workers, all of whom are legal immigrants from Mexico who’ve been in the US for more than 20 years, and their annual group of H-2A workers.

In recent years, more attention has been given to the often forgotten but incredibly important skilled farmworkers that make California’s agriculture industry possible. And yet, 20 percent of farmworkers have family incomes below the poverty level, according to the most recent National Agricultural Workers Survey, and 44 percent of all migrant workers still live below the federal poverty line.

Somerston Estate is one of many farms and wineries focused on improving working conditions and quality of life for its skilled workers. It starts off by paying them a living wage, which is rare but crucial. In California, the average vineyard worker crew is paid a certain rate per ton of grapes picked. Depending on the crew and grapes available to be harvested, that can fall anywhere between $11 and $24 an hour, according to statistics gathered by Napa Valley Vintners. At Somerston Estate, however, workers are paid a flat hourly rate, which means they are valued as much during years when wildfires or other environmental issues reduce crop yield as they are when vineyards produce a bountiful harvest. “The least expensive workers make $24 an hour,” says Becker. 

Housing for migrant workers in Napa Valley is especially expensive and limited, something the estate is also looking to remedy for its workers by building them their own housing complex near the property. “[Migrant workers] end up in a place like Fairfield, California, which, there’s nothing wrong with Fairfield, California, but it’s not a Mexican plantation. It’s not a farm in rural Mexico, where these folks came from,” says Becker. “They all tend to live in, you know, two- to three-story apartments, because it’s very expensive. And the majority of the apartments actually have no community garden.”

As a small way to honor its vineyard workers, Somerston Estate devotes a plot of land for them on which to garden, where they can grow and harvest fruits and vegetables with which to feed their families. “It’s all for the employees,” says Becker. “Pick it from the tree and it’s yours.”

Beyond being a source of food, Becker says the garden also presents an opportunity for migrant workers to connect with the lives they left behind in their home country. “The journey and sacrifices these people have made with the hopes of building a better life on this side of the border is truly remarkable…and the majority, if not all, of our legal migrant workers grew up on a farm,” he says. “Farming is in these folks’ blood. This is what they do.”

Farmworkers started the half-acre garden on the Somerston Estate property around 10 years ago, and it has grown and evolved since. Today, it’s largely run by long-term employee and irrigation manager Jose Carmelo Leon, known by his co-workers as Carmelo. “[The workers] come and work the garden during their lunch hour and after work, and it’s truly remarkable,” says Becker. “You can see their joy when they harvest and share their loot with the rest of the company, including H-2A workers.”

This year, the small-but-mighty garden is filled with jalapeños, serranos, corn, onion and tomatillos, as well as watermelon, strawberries and mango. There are also rows of squash, tomatoes, eggplant and a bounty of herbs. A small orchard is planted for peach, pear and Asian pear trees.

“We’re not unique…There’s plenty of farms and vineyards that have spots for workers to do what they’re used to doing,” says Becker. “You’ve got these amazing workers who’ve given up what they consider to be their bedrock, their farm, their way of life, to come here and try to do something better for their family. Being able to provide a small window into their previous life, I mean, how could you not?”

The post The Winery Garden That Feeds Migrant Vineyard Workers appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Colu Cooks: Easy Fancy Food

I’ve been a fan of Colu Henry’s recipes since picking up a copy of her first cookbook, Back Pocket Pasta, in 2017. She’s back with a new collection of recipes, which build on ingredients all home cooks should already have stocked in their pantry. They range from classic and easy, such as soft-boiled eggs with pickled chiles or a Sunday frittata, to elegant and sublime, as is the case with the citrus-braised short ribs, lamb ragú with anchovies and pea shoots and the many iterations of fancy toast.

(April 26, Abrams Books)

Green Fire: Extraordinary Ways to Grill Fruits and Vegetables, from the Master of Live-Fire Cooking

Francis Mallmann, an expert in Patagonian cuisine, is known for his mastery of cooking meat over an open fire. But, as the Argentine chef shows in his new vegetarian cookbook, Green Fire, he can give the same attention to fruits and vegetables. Within its pages, you’ll learn about the different grills that Mallmann uses, as well as how to apply his mastery of flame, coals and smoke to potatoes, cabbages, eggplant, corn, fennel, squashes, fruit and more to really make the ingredients sing.

(May 10, Artisan)

Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes from the Matriarch of Edisto Island

It’s not every day that an 89-year-old publishes their first cookbook—especially if they’ve never used a cookbook before. For Emily Meggett, a respected elder and “the matriarch of Edisto Island,” the publication of her first cookbook is more than a personal celebration. For all her life, Meggett has lived on South Carolina’s Edith Island, where she’s cooked rich dishes with heirloom rice and vegetables, fresh seafood and local game. Gullah Geechee Home Cooking not only offers culturally important recipes such as Hoppin’ John, Creole Shrimp and Okra Gumbo, it also documents the history of the Gullah Geechee people, descendants of Africans who were enslaved on rice, indigo and cotton plantations of the lower Atlantic Coast, where Gullah Geechee communities stretch from North Carolina to Florida. 

(April 26, Abrams Books)

I Dream of Dinner (So You Don’t Have To): Low-Effort, High-Reward Recipes

If, like me, you’ve felt despair at any point during the last few years, you need Ali Slagle’s cookbook. These recipes require minimal effort and ingredients without sacrificing big flavor. Salumi Butter Rigatoni? Yes, please. Low-Maintenance Grilled Chicken? Now we’re talking. The four-ingredient Buttered Quinoa with Bok Choy? I can manage that, and so can you.

(April 12, Clarkson Potter)

The Kindred Life: Stories and Recipes to Cultivate a Life of Organic Connection

On the 17-acre Kindred Farm in Sante Fe, Tennessee, organic farmer Christine Marie Bailey has worked to build a life of nourishment. After growing up in an Italian-American household in New Jersey, Bailey attended college in Nashville, an hour away from where she and her husband would eventually plant literal and figurative roots. In her debut book, she shares stories from her journey and dishes she’s honed during farm-to-table events the farm hosts.

(May 17, Harper Horizon)

Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home

In his debut cookbook, Eric Kim, a New York Times staff food writer, presents more than 80 recipes that showcase what it means to be Korean American. The cookbook, peppered with short essays about his experience growing up the son of two Korean immigrants in Atlanta, also reads like a tribute to his mother, Jean, with whom Kim tested recipes during the early days of the pandemic. Through food, Korean American explores how traditions—both familial and culinary—are tried, tested and cemented over time. Standout dishes include the Creamy Bucatini with Roasted Seaweed, Meatloaf-Glazed Kalbi, Jean’s Perfect Jar of Kimchi and Gochujang-Glazed Zucchini.

(March 29, Clarkson Potter)

The Miller’s Daughter: Unusual Flours and Heritage Grains

In 2011, father-daughter duo Jeff and Emma Zimmerman founded Hayden Flour Mills in Arizona. For more than a decade, the company has focused on reviving near-extinct varieties of ancient grains. Now, Zimmerman showcases the family business’s grains in a new cookbook, which is organized by grain: White Sonora (a winter wheat), heritage bread wheat, farro, barley, einkorn (an ancient-wheat variety), corn, durum, chickpeas, oats and rye. While there are plenty of recipes for breads, cookies and tarts, The Miller’s Daughter is not filled only with baked goods. There are grain salads, polenta dishes and other savory preparations, too.

(May 17, Hardie Grant)

My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef

In his 2019 memoir, Notes From a Young Black Chef, Kwame Onwuachi explored his coming-of-age story of chasing his dreams as a Black chef. Now, he’s back with his first cookbook, My America, featuring more than 125 recipes that celebrate the food of the African Diaspora. Interspersed between recipes such as Nigerian Jollof, Ackee and Saltfish, Jerk Chicken, Doro Wat and Golden Rum Cake, Onwuachi shares tales from Trinidad, Jamaica, Louisiana and Texas, where he traveled on a personal journey to trace his Afro-Caribbean culinary roots—discovering his America in the process.

(May 17, Knopf)

Salad Freak: Recipes to Feed a Healthy Obsession

If you’ve ever stood over your cutting board wondering why it’s so hard to make a not-boring salad that you actually want to eat, allow me to introduce you to Jess Damuck’s cookbook, Salad Freak. It is truly a salad bible, with helpful tips about how to think of building salads around color, texture, shape and flavor, as well as how to store all that fresh produce so it lasts. Try your hand at making recipes such as the Shaved Fennel and Tuna Salad, Caesar Salad Pizza Salad or the Dilly Double Beans and Farro Salad. You may never need to order from Sweetgreen again.

(March 29, Abrams Books)

The Steger Homestead Kitchen: Simple Recipes for an Abundant Life

In 1988, Arctic explorer and environmental activist Will Steger founded the Steger Wilderness Center near Ely, Minnesota, dedicated to ecological stewardship. At the heart of the homestead is the kitchen, helmed by Will’s niece, Rita Mae Steger, a second-generation homesteader and chef. This new cookbook celebrates the dishes Rita Mae serves at the center, including a whole chicken roasted over a fire pit, mushroom and wild rice soup, berry pie and a vibrant-hued cashew beet butter.

(February 1, University of Minnesota Press)

The post 10 New Cookbooks We’ve Been Cooking From This Spring appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The decision was made after an American inspector, who works for the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, received a threat, according to Mexico’s department of agriculture. “US health authorities…made the decision after one of their officials, who was carrying out inspections in Uruapan, Michoacan, received a threatening message on his official cellphone,” the department wrote.

Mexico is the largest avocado producer in the world, of which 80 percent of supplies are imported by the United States. The country produces three varieties of avocado, the most traded tropical fruit in the world, with Hass accounting for 97 percent of total production.

[RELATED: Scientists Crack the Genetic Code of the Hass Avocado]

While avocados are grown in many Mexican states, only those grown in Michoacán have phytosanitary approvals to export to the US. Fresh Mexican Hass avocados from Michoacán cross the border duty-free.

This is not the first time that violence in Michoacán, where the Jalisco cartel is fighting turf wars against a collection of local gangs, has threatened the country’s avocado business. In August 2019, a USDA team of inspectors was “directly threatened,” and while the agency did not clarify what happened, local authorities reported a gang robbed the truck in which the inspectors were traveling at gunpoint. “For future situations that result in a security breach, or demonstrate an imminent physical threat to the well-being of APHIS personnel, we will immediately suspend program activities,” the USDA wrote at that time.

The USDA has not confirmed the Mexico avocado ban, but it seems to be upholding its past promise to take immediate action should illegal activities happen again.

This weekend’s ban likely didn’t affect avocado sales for Sunday’s big game, as any avocados intended to be consumed for the Super Bowl were imported weeks ago. But the decision could have lasting consequences for Mexico’s most lucrative crop.

The post US Suspends Avocado Imports From Mexico appeared first on Modern Farmer.

A few days later, I walked into a vegan pizzeria at 9 p.m. and rescued a box packed with assorted slices, enough food to feed me and my partner lunch for a couple days, all for $4.99. Later that week, I strolled down to our neighborhood’s weekly farmers’ market, where I rescued a bag filled with fresh gai lan (Chinese broccoli), scallions, baby turnips, shishito peppers, watermelon radishes and cilantro—produce that might have spoiled and been tossed had I not swiped it up. Again, my farmers’ market haul cost me only $4.99.

I rescued all the food through an app called Too Good to Go, which I finally downloaded after months of being bombarded with targeted ads for it. At first, I thought it was too good to be true. Saving still-edible food from being tossed in the dumpster, and at a significantly cheaper cost to me? Why wasn’t this practice already widespread?

A sample Surprise Bag from La Boulangerie. Photo courtesy of Too Good to Go.

The Copenhagen-based app Too Good to Go, which launched in the US in New York City in October 2020, connects users with nearby restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets and other vendors with extra food that would otherwise be thrown away, allowing them to sell it at a discounted price instead. Now in 12 American cities, including Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Austin, San Francisco and Seattle, with more than 8,000 partnering vendors, Too Good to Go has helped save more than 1.4 million meals in the US in less than 18 months.

“It’s a win for those businesses that, first of all, no longer have to throw food away,” says Claire Oliverson, a spokesperson for Too Good to Go, a B-Corp company. “They make it so lovingly every day and to have to throw it away is really sad. But they also get increased revenue that hopefully at least covers the cost of the ingredients.”

On the user end, you don’t get to see exactly what you’re going to be picking up, but for me, that’s part of the appeal. The “Surprise Bags,” made up of whatever excess food the business has, present an opportunity to try something—or someplace—new. If you’re someone who’s less adventurous or has strict diet restrictions, this app may not be for you. However, I have found that some places, such as pizzerias and bakeries, will let you pick from their surplus selection.

[RELATED: These TikTokers Are Turning Trash Into Food Treasures]

There’s a lot of numbers that get thrown around when discussing food waste, but when presented together, it’s almost too much to digest: In the US, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. That’s at least 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food. As much as 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions come from food that ends up at landfills. If our global food waste could be represented as its own country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China. That’s a lot of wasted food, food that was grown by farmers and prepared by people who care deeply about feeding others.

While the shared mission of apps such as Too Good to Go and Flashfood (which targets food waste in grocery stores) to rescue food from being tossed in the trash is an honorable one, they’re not going to solve the global food waste problem. Neither can we, on an individual level. But small changes can snowball into larger shifts in perspective, which might someday lead to much-needed policy overhaul.

“When you have an issue that’s so massive, so often it feels kind of immobilizing,” says Oliverson. “We really wanted to come up with a solution that’s accessible, that’s simple and makes it really easy to get involved. It’s something everyone can do in their local communities.”

It’s also something that I, for one, plan to continue.

The post Fighting Food Waste, One Swipe at a Time appeared first on Modern Farmer.

If you’re looking for a reason to get back into a cooking routine this winter, turn to these new cookbooks. In them, you’ll find recipes that are comforting, reinvigorating and perhaps even a little bit challenging. Best of all, they’re worthwhile additions to any cookbook collection. Turn to them in winter—and beyond.

Good Enough: Embracing the Joys of Imperfection & Practicing Self-Care in the Kitchen

Truly a judgment-free cookbook, Leanne Brown’s Good Enough celebrates all the feelings that come up around cooking—the good and the bad. At a time when American parents are overwhelmed, employee burnout rates continue to rise and the new Omicron variant takes the world by storm, we should all be a little bit gentler with ourselves. Begin in the kitchen with Brown’s cookbook, featuring tips on how to stock your fridge and pantry, as well as recipes for morning smoothies and yogurt bowls, simple salads and sandwiches for lunch, as well as entrees that are nourishing without being overwhelming. Take it one day and one meal at a time.

(January 11, Workman)

Unbelievably Vegan: 100+ Life-Changing, Plant-Based Recipes

Chef Charity Morgan has worked with celebrities and NFL athletes (including her husband, linebacker Derrick Morgan) to transform their eating habits and transition to following a plant-based diet. Her cooking was featured in the 2018 pro-vegan documentary The Game Changers, and now she’s sharing more than 100 of her recipes in a new cookbook. Morgan leans on her Puerto Rican and Creole heritage in meat-free recipes such as Caribbean ceviche made with soy curls and pastelillos (hand pies) with saffron aioli. You’ll also recognize ingredients and food traditions from the South, where she lives with her family, including plant-based versions of Creole gumbo and smoky jambalaya.

(January 18, Clarkson Potter)

101 Thai Dishes You Need to Cook Before You Die

Looking to immerse yourself in a specific cuisine this winter and also cut down on your weekly takeout orders? Consider cooking from the latest cookbook from celebrity chef and restaurateur Jet Tila, in which he breaks down all the pantry ingredients you’ll need to make more than 100 classic Thai dishes. He also teaches you how to make your own curry pastes—a key step in getting maximum flavor out of the enclosed recipes. Tila, who specializes in Thai and Chinese cooking, has included everything from panang curry chicken and Massaman beef curry to pineapple fried rice, laarb and Thai sausage.

(January 25, Page Street Publishing)

The Fresh Eggs Daily Cookbook

Are your backyard chickens laying too many eggs for you to keep up with? Fifth-generation Maine chicken keeper Lisa Steele is here to help. In her new cookbook, which grew out of her popular Fresh Eggs Daily blog, Steele shows you all kinds of different ways to cook recipes with eggs, including steaming, grilling, baking, frying and even drinking them. Bourbon Maple Sour, anyone?

(February 15, Harper Horizon)

Salad: 100 Recipes for Simple Salads & Dressings

At some point this winter, all you’ll want to eat is a fresh, crunchy piece of lettuce to remind you of the warmer weather that’s to come. As Dutch author and food stylist Janneke Philippi shows in her new cookbook, your salads don’t have to be boring. In fact, hers are anything but. Take the radicchio and chestnut salad for example, featuring red apples and a tangy mustard-yogurt dressing, which balance out the aforementioned ingredients’ bitter notes. Or a steamed dumpling salad? Yes, dumplings! There’s also a range of winter-appropriate grain, rice and pasta salads, such as roasted pumpkin with goat cheese and spelt or a black rice salad with beans and red chili. Allow Philippi to show you how to use greens as a canvas, adding savory, spicy, hearty or light elements to match your cravings.

(February 15, Smith Street Books)

The post 5 New Cookbooks We’re Finding Comfort In Right Now appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Cookbook author and longtime vegan Zacchary Bird embraces this sort of association. In his new cookbook, The Vegan Butcher: The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Meat, Bird provides vegans, as well as other eaters looking to consume less meat, with the techniques to make meatless cuisine taste like, well, meat. He includes plant-based versions of classic meat-centric dishes such as roasted turkey, pork belly, Nashville-fried chicken and Korean barbecue ribs, as well as vegan seafood, featuring oyster mushroom scallops, watermelon and eggplant sashimi and Baja fish tacos. The recipes graduate from basic to advanced recipes in each chapter, ranging from store-bought options to making everything from scratch. Bases include vegetables, proteins, legumes, seasonal fruits, mushrooms and more.

Don’t get too hung up on the meat-centric terms used in some of the recipe names—everything in the book is vegan. As food writer Alicia Kennedy pointed out in one of her recent newsletters, the words we use to describe vegan foods are bound to be tied to meat. “Our culinary language is based on meat; as more people move toward plant-based diets, there will be a period of overlap as we come to new or redefined terminology,” she writes. “Just as we’re adapting our diets because of changes in the weather, we can adapt meat-centric language to apply to vegetables where it makes sense without getting too tied up in what exactly the dictionary definitions are of things like ‘ribs’ or ‘butcher.’”

Before the release of The Vegan Butcher, we caught up with Bird to discuss vegetable butchering, meat substitutes and the future of plant-based eating. And as a treat, he shared a recipe for mushroom steak frites with us at the end.

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Modern Farmer: People generally associate the word “butcher” with meat, not vegetables. Why did you choose the title Vegan Butcher for your cookbook?

Zacchary Bird: The name and cover design really captures the book’s mission: to showcase the versatility of what modern plant-based ingredients and techniques look like through familiar meals that look, chew and taste like you’d expect to be off the menu for vegans! The recipes range from simple and traditional—like homemade tofu or mock duck from bean curd skin—to an entire three-layer vegan and gluten-free turducken so that anyone looking to replace meat can find dishes in there that get them excited.

MF: Despite it being a vegan cookbook, a good number of the recipes have meat-centric names. What was the thinking behind naming them after their meat counterparts despite the proteins being substituted with other items?

ZB: Instead of telling people who are used to having fried chicken on a Friday night to have a bowl of lentils, the book is trying to offer a direct vegan substitute for familiar favorites. I wanted the recipe names to focus on explaining what we’re recreating. The book also offers a myriad of ways to replace each ingredient to really drive home the point that you can take flavors from non-vegan dishes and match them to similar textures for fantastically similar results. For example, the Nashville-fried Chicken can be made from seitan, washed seitan, tofu, okara, cauliflower or mushrooms.

MF: Will vegan food ever be able to step out from behind the meat-centric terms used to describe the way it tastes?

ZB: For sure, and it will! But we’re still in the stage where (at least according to my comments on social media) people don’t understand why a vegan would make food that tastes and looks like meat. Vegans haven’t given up meat because of its awful flavor or texture. It’s because they want to eat more ethically, environmentally friendly or (if you want to!) more healthily. It’s a simple fact that people have nostalgia for food they grew up eating, so I don’t think it’s shocking that we try to find better alternatives for them—and until we come together as a society and agree that one single ingredient is the best substitute, such as tofu for chicken—the easiest way to explain what we’re making is to compare it to what it’s trying to be an analogue of.

MF: What are some of your favorite techniques for transforming vegetables into a meat-like dish?

ZB: Smoking, charring and searing are all lovely ways to get a bit of burn in there. Vegan meals tend to be veggie-centric, which doesn’t hold up to long cooking times like meat does to get all that smoky flavor. So things like using a smoker box on your [grill] or introducing liquid smoke [to a dish] can be a great shortcut to that flavor with plant-based food. A good marinade loaded with umami (soy sauce, mushroom, sun-dried foods, fermented foods, miso, etc.) will help add in the rich savoriness often lacking in vegan alternatives.

MF: You include diagrams that show how eggplant can be cut and transformed into chicken schnitzel-like and lamb chops-like meals. Are there other fruits or vegetables that have those sorts of parallels?

ZB: They make such a great parallel to those classic cross-sections butchers have showing the different cuts of meat against the silhouette of a cow. I really wanted to invite the reader to think of plant-based ingredients in this same way as we explore which substitutions work for which animal product. The book has step-by-step images of the “butchering” process of ingredients being prepared as plant-based meat. For example, if you can get your hands on fresh banana blossom (as opposed to the canned stuff popular in vegan seafood recipes, which is also covered in the book!), I show you how to separate the leaves—which are inedible but great to serve things on—then separate the florets and remove their bitter components to be used as pulled pork. Then, we get to the heart of the blossom, which can be sliced up fresh in salads or, as I prefer, marinated, beer-battered, fried and then served as battered fish with hot chips and tartar sauce.

MF: If there were only one concept or idea to take away from your cookbook, what is it? 

ZB: The versatility of plant-based options! I didn’t want to just tell readers to make a bolognese out of crumbled seitan, when I know lentils and walnuts, home-made or store-bought plant-based minced or even rehydrated textured vegetable protein (TVP) make a great meat substitute…so I put them all in! I hope that having multiple options to use as the base for each instills the idea that you can really explore and find your favorite alternative for a particular meat instead of trying the first one offered and deciding you don’t like it. There’s no one official way to do it and that’s wonderful news for a crafty home cook.

Photo courtesy of publisher.

The post Becoming the Vegan Butcher appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Fifty years ago, Diet for a Small Planet helped spark a food revolution. In the book—the first one to note the environmental impacts of meat production—author Frances Moore Lappé argued for environmental vegetarianism, practicing a vegetarian lifestyle due to concerns over animal-based industries and products. It sold more than three million copies. This fall, a revised and updated version was released in honor of the book’s 50th anniversary. In the new edition, Lappé offers ways we can address the current climate crisis and restore damaged foodways. It also features 85 plant-centered recipes, as well as new insights from Mark Bittman, Padma Lakshmi, Alice Waters, José Andrés, Bryant Terry and other notable chefs.

(September 21, Ballantine Books)

Meatpacking America: How Migration, Work, and Faith Unite and Divide the Heartland

Kristy Nabhan-Warren lives in the Corn Belt state of Iowa, which has led the nation in commercial red meat production in recent years. In 2020, Iowa accounted for nearly 9 billion pounds of beef, veal, pork, lamb and mutton—up from 2019, despite the fact that COVID-19 infections spread rapidly throughout meatpacking plants across the nation during the early days of the pandemic. It’s those workers, many of whom are immigrants, that Nabhan-Warren focuses on in Meatpacking America. Through interviews with immigrant and native-born meatpacking workers and residents, agricultural CEOs and local religious leaders, she explores how the state came to be a major hub of both migration and food production. 

(September 21, UNC Press)

Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America 

Journalist Beth Hoffman spent decades reporting on food and agriculture before she and her husband decided to leave their home in San Francisco to take over his family’s Iowa farm, with the goal to turn it into a more environmentally friendly business in the process. The couple quickly learned how expensive and challenging it would be to do so. In Bet the Farm, Hoffman talks frankly about the struggles of being a beginner farmer, including how their decision to grow oats, which are good for the soil, ended terribly after a storm came through and soaked them just before harvest. It’s a book about succession and determination, but it’s also about just how fragile the future of family farms is in America.

(October 5, Island Press)

Truffle Hound: On the Trail of the World’s Most Seductive Scent, with Dreamers, Schemers, and Some Extraordinary Dogs

For his latest obsession, Rowan Jacobsen—the author of A Geography of Oysters, Fruitless Fall and American Terroir—delves into the seductive world of truffles. He journeys from Italy to Istria, Hungary, Spain, England and North America, following the trail of about a dozen different species of truffles, including Italy’s celebrated white truffle, as well as the black truffle, which is more subtle but longer lasting. Truffle Hound offers a unique insight into the secretive hunts and black-market deals that take place before chefs shave them over luxury dishes and serve them to you in restaurants. Jacobsen also meets a few good dogs along the way.

(October 5, Bloomsbury)

Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and Our Food Future

If you want to learn just how Monsanto came to be hated by so many, this is the book for you. Award-winning historian Bartow J. Elmore traces the St. Louis chemical firm’s beginning in 1901 as a humble enterprise to becoming the face of corporate evil. He covers the troubling, explosive parts of the company’s history—everything from the introduction of its genetically modified organism (GMO) Roundup Ready seeds 25 years ago and how the sterile seeds hurt farmers’ margins, to the many lawsuits against the company (which merged with German pharma-biotech giant Bayer in 2018), to the hold Monsanto’s legacy still has on the global food system.

(October 12, W.W. Norton & Company)

Growing and Eating Sustainably: Agroecology in Action

While the industrial food system is built for scale and efficiency, often resulting in food that’s less expensive for the consumer, it doesn’t do much good for the environment. It’s a major contributor to social and economic problems, too. The coronavirus pandemic helped further expose the fragility of our global food system. In response, an approach known as agroecology—which views agricultural areas as ecosystems—is on the rise. In this book, Evan Bowness and Dana James showcase agroecology in action throughout Brazil, highlighting farmers and how the farming practices they use can contribute to more sustainable and just food systems in other parts of the world.

(October 15, Fernwood Publishing)

The Complete Guide to Restoring Your Soil: Improve Water Retention and Infiltration; Support Microorganisms and Other Soil Life; Capture More Sunlight

The planet needs better soil, says soil specialist Dale Strickler. In addition to producing healthy food, good soil holds moisture, resists erosion, stores carbon and can withstand droughts and floods. In his latest book, Strickler looks at the various factors that have led to poor soil quality, such as the rise of industrialized agriculture, tilling and monocropping, and makes a case for why farmers and home gardeners should care just as much about cultivating healthy soil as they care about cultivating crops. He offers proven methods for how to restore depleted soil, and explains what signs of life to look for in healthy soil.

(October 26, Storey Publishing)

Taming Fruit: How Orchards Have Transformed the Land, Offered Sanctuary, and Inspired Creativity

As Bernd Brunner points out in Taming Fruit, the story of orchards is intertwined with the story of humanity. He considers their importance as sources for food, as well as the role orchards have played as sources of inspiration for artists and writers. In an exploration that’s both captivating and scientific, Brunner explores the history of orchards around the world, filled with fruits such as apples, pears, quinces, plums, cherries, dates and almonds, and how they’ve helped establish our ever-evolving tastes.

(October 31, Greystone Books)

The Farmer’s Lawyer: The North Dakota Nine and the Fight to Save the Family Farm

In the early 1980s, farmers were suffering in ways they hadn’t in decades. Tightened money policies from the Federal Reserve and the Reagan administration caused farmland to drop nearly 60 percent in some states. Farm foreclosures rose dramatically. It was the worst economic crisis to hit rural America since the Great Depression. In North Dakota, Sarah Vogel, a young lawyer and single mother, stepped up to help farmers save their land. As the lead attorney in Coleman v. Block, a national class action case filed on behalf of 240,000 farmers, Vogel became known as “The Farmer’s Lawyer.” In her stunning memoir, she chronicles the battle she fought—both in the courts and in her personal life—to ensure she and those farmers survived. (Look for our profile of Vogel next week.)

(November 2, Bloomsbury)

How to Be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land

This anthology features classical Greek and Roman writings about living on and working the land. The original texts, translated by classicist M.D. Usher (who happens to also be a farmer in Vermont, where he produces lamb, eggs and maple syrup on a 125-acre farm), sit alongside their English translations on neighboring pages. They include ancient Greek poet Hesiod praising the dignity of labor and cultivating good neighbors; Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius’ philosophy of compost; Roman scholar Varro dedicating a farming manual to his wife, “Mrs. Farmer” and exploring the prestige of rearing livestock; and Pliny the Elder explaining why all culture stems from agriculture.

(November 2, Princeton University Press)

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While the spotted lanternfly is not a threat to humans, the insect causes major damage to some cash crops. Since first being detected in Pennsylvania in 2014, the invasive spotted lanternfly has wreaked havoc on fruit crops and trees up and down the East Coast. The insects often travel on the sides and undercarriages of cars and trucks, which increases their risk of spreading. According to the USDA, the hungry pest has now been seen in Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

If you’re located in any of those states—or spot a spotted lanternfly anywhere else—here are five natural methods you can use to keep their population from growing.

Photo by Amy Lutz, Shutterstock.

Squash Them, Smash Them, Stomp Them

The most effective way to kill a spotted lanternfly is to squish them. They’re good at hopping, but they aren’t very good at flying, so a quick stomp or swift swat should do the trick. Whether you see one on a picnic table at a park, on a lamp post in a parking lot, on your farm or in your own backyard, stomp it out. Summer is the prime time for the insect’s adult stage, so that’s when this method will be most useful.

Photo courtesy of the Integrative Ecology Lab at Temple University via YouTube.

Capture in a Plastic Bottle

If you’re looking for a solution that’s a little less messy, you can use a plastic water bottle to collect them. This method, tested by Temple University’s Interactive Ecology lab, involves holding an empty, uncapped water bottle over the insects. They’re not the brightest creatures and will actually launch themselves into the bottle. Remember to cap it in between collection sites, and then place it in your freezer to humanely kill them before disposing.

Spotted lanternfly eggs. Photo by Amy Lutz, Shutterstock.

Scrape Off Eggs

When temperatures drop, the living spotted lanternfly dies out. But their masses of eggs—laid in neat rows and covered with secretions so they look like mud—survive colder weather and hatch in the spring. The eggs are usually laid on tree bark and the undersides of branches, but female spotted lanternflies will deposit eggs on just about any flat surface, including rocks and outdoor furniture. Fall and winter are the best seasons to scoop up these eggs before it’s too late. Using a credit card, scrape off the eggs and dispose of them in a container filled with alcohol (which will kill them).

Chickens are known to eat spotted lanternflies. Photo by Alex Ionas, Shutterstock.

Introduce Natural Predators

Utilizing the spotted lanternfly’s natural predators is a great way to manage the pest. Animals that prey on the insects include gray catbirds, cats, dogs, ducks, chickens, wheel bugs, hornets, green frogs, fishing spiders, goldfish, koi fish and yellow jackets. You likely won’t be able to introduce all of these animals, but if you have a cat, dog, ducks or chickens that go outside, direct them to infested areas and watch the food chain at work.

Common milkweed. Photo by nnattalli, Shutterstock.

Plant More Milkweed

Spotted lanternflies are attracted to common milkweed, unaware that it is poisonous. The plant’s poisonous sap also slows the insect down so it’s easier to catch and smush. Planting more milkweed also comes with the added benefit of helping to save Monarch butterflies from extinction.

The post How to Get Rid of Spotted Lanternflies appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Flavors from the Garden: Heirloom Vegetable Recipes from Roughwood

Food historian William Woys Weaver knows a thing or two about how to write a book—he’s authored more than 15 of them. In Flavors from the Garden, the heirloom seed and heritage food expert shows CSA shoppers and home gardeners how to turn their vegetables into tasty dishes. With 80 recipes that follow the seasons, he shares comforting dishes such as a Pennsylvania Dutch-inspired saffron corn soup, corn waffles with ham and bean gravy, ramp pesto and Lemon Blush tomato pie.

(October 12, Rizzoli)

The Korean Vegan Cookbook: Reflections and Recipes from Omma’s Kitchen

Joanne Lee Molinaro, the woman behind @thekoreanvegan on Instagram and TikTok, shows the plant-based side of Korean cuisine, which is synonymous with grilled meats and fish sauce. In her debut cookbook, she offers a guide to using essential pantry ingredients such as soy sauce, doenjang (a fermented soybean paste), gochujang (chili paste), gochugaru (pepper powder), dashima (kelp) and dried mushrooms. The included 80 recipes cover bbang (breads), kimchi and salads, soups and stews, noodles and pastas, as well as banchan, the collective name for the small side dishes that complement Korean meals.

(October 12, Avery Publishing Group)

Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora

As Bryant Terry writes in the introduction to Black Food, this cookbook is “a communal shrine to the shared histories of the African Diaspora.” The chef, activist and author has edited this collection of stories and recipes from dozens of Black chefs and cooks, which include everything from green plantain crisps and creamy grits to smoked collard greens and black-eyed pea beignets. The book also includes a playlist curated by Terry.

(October 19, 4 Color Books)

That Sounds So Good: 100 Real-Life Recipes for Every Day of the Week

In her second cookbook, Carla Lalli Music, formerly the food director of Bon Appétit, presents 100 recipes—more than 50 of which are vegetarian—to get you through the week. The first half of the book features quick meals to make Monday through Thursday, when work and school schedules can make it difficult to whip up a good dinner. There are steamed lemongrass mussels, avocado and fresh chile caprese, chickpea pancakes with shaved vegetables and fat noodles with mushrooms and herb sauce. The second half, for Friday through Sunday, includes plenty of stews and soups for Lazy Sundays, as well as more ambitious dishes for when you have a little more time on your hands.

(October 19, Clarkson Potter)

Grist: A Practical Guide to Cooking Grains, Beans, Seeds, and Legumes

This is the cookbook to cozy up to. Chef Abra Berens celebrates the beauty and versatility of grains and legumes and the farmers who grow them. She offers an approach that helped her reframe her own view of cooking with them: Instead of making a big batch of lentil soup, for example, cook a big batch of lentils and use them in different ways throughout the week. Grist features more than 125 recipes for 29 different types of grains, legumes and seeds, plus hundreds of different flavor variations on those. She also, hilariously, addresses the inevitable farts that tend to come with eating whole grains and legumes: “My mom swore by Beano. In short, find what works for you. Me, I just think farts are funny, so I take no prophylactic.”

(October 26, Chronicle Books) 

Grains for Every Season: Rethinking Our Way with Grains

Joshua McFadden, whose James Beard Award-winning Six Seasons helped transform the way many home cooks prepare vegetables, is back with a new cookbook about grains. Written with Martha Holmberg, Grains for Every Season has 200 recipes for salads, soups, grain bowls, veggie burgers, cookies and crackers that feature barley, brown rice, buckwheat, corn, millet, oats, quinoa, rye, wheat and wild rice.

(November 16, Artisan Publishers)

New Native Kitchen: Celebrating Modern Recipes of the American Indian

Indigenous foodways of America have largely been ignored by the culinary scene for centuries, but no longer. Freddie Bitsoie, a member of the Navajo Nation and the former executive chef at Mitsitam Native Foods Café at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, teamed up with James Beard Award-winning author James O. Fraioli to showcase the Indigenous heritage of American cuisine. The varied recipes, such as prickly pear sweet pork chops and sumac seared trout with onion and bacon sauce, are hyper-seasonal and hyper-regional, and they offer a modern take on traditional Native American cooking.

(November 16, Abrams)

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“You can’t visit a distillery and see the crop that’s being grown on site. Only in a very few cases does that exist, so there’s a geographic disconnect,” says Shanna Farrell, author of the new book, A Good Drink: In Pursuit of Sustainable Spirits. “A lot of spirits are made with commodity crops, so a lot of distillers don’t even know where they’re sourcing their ingredients from. They don’t know what state their corn is coming from.”

Of course, all spirits are products of agriculture, too. Before a distiller can transform a crop into something drinkable, a farmer first needs to grow it. Whiskey is produced from corn, rye, barley and/or wheat. Rum starts as sugarcane. Tequila and mezcal are made from agave plants. Brandy requires fruit.

Farrell argues that distillers—and consumers—should care more about the agricultural practices those farmers use. “Just as we need biodiversity in wild plants, we also need it in cultivated crops,” she writes in the book’s introduction. “Among other benefits, genetic diversity in the foods we eat and the drinks we sip protects us against crop diseases, improves soil health, and creates resilience to climate change.”

Although some alcoholic beverage producers have grown more mindful of issues relating to sustainability in their vineyards, orchards, fields and production facilities in recent years—implementing regenerative agriculture practices and embracing hybrid grapes—many have yet to catch up, including a large swath of distilleries and liquor brands.

One notable example Farrell cites is Campari, the bitter Italian aperitif that’s known for its bright red color and viscosity. It’s become synonymous with a Negroni, the three-part cocktail that calls for equal parts of gin, sweet vermouth and a bitter spirit (often Campari). Years ago, Campari used cochineal bugs, which exude the natural dye carmine, to color the liqueur. But that changed in 2006, when Campari switched to using red dye no. 40, the artificial coloring agent that has been linked to cancer, allergic reactions and other ailments. While many people eschew foods colored with red dye no. 40, Campari remains one of the world’s best-selling spirits.

Why do we treat alcohol differently than we treat food? The answers to that question drive Farrell’s narrative quest in the book. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that alcohol is regulated by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), while food products are regulated by the FDA and USDA. That’s why ingredient labels on liquor bottles aren’t required, for example. But other reasons are more cultural, not as easy to identify or change.

Photos courtesy of Island Press.

Farrell’s interest in sustainable spirits was first piqued when she was working as a bartender in her 20s while living in Brooklyn and attending graduate school. “I had spent so much time staring at bottles on the back bar and never seeing anything about ingredients or how things were made,” says Farrell, who began questioning why the farm-to-table culinary movement wasn’t also translating to the drinks she was making for patrons. “I was seeing all these menus that have purveyors listed, where the lettuce is sourced from, how the meat is raised, and what farms they come from. But there was not any sort of attention being paid to how spirits or liqueurs were being sourced.”

As an interviewer at UC Berkeley’s Oral History Center, Farrell knows how to tell a good story and A Good Drink is riddled with them. Traversing the world of spirits, she travels to South Carolina, where Ann Marshall and Scott Blackwell of High Wire Distilling Co. make bourbon whiskey from Jimmy Red corn, a heritage variety of corn that was rescued from near extinction. The couple convinced a few local farms to grow Jimmy Red corn instead of yellow dent corn, a commodity crop that’s easy to grow but often riddled with pesticides and therefore harmful to the soil and environment.

Farrell also goes to Mexico, where tequila producers have endured agave shortages that followed the Mexican government’s 1949 decision that mandated tequila be made from only 100-percent blue Weber agave, despite there being 150 different varieties of agave that grow in the country. She visits small mezcal producers, who are working to preserve traditional ways of making the spirit that are good for the health of both the local people and land.

Back in the US, Farrell visits St. George Spirits in the Bay Area, a craft distillery that originally launched with the goal of distilling local fruit. But when the grower from whom they bought pears, located only miles from the distillery, ripped out his trees to plant more profitable crops, they were forced to find fruit elsewhere. With drought and wildfires an increasing threat in California, St. George has now turned to Colorado to source pears for its pear brandy, introducing a greater carbon footprint to what was once a hyperlocal spirit.

The book ends where Farrell’s journey began: the bar. She highlights a small group of bartenders leading the way, bartenders who carefully source spirits and share the stories of the people who make them. The hope, of course, is that this sort of change will lead not only to a good drink but a better drink.

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