"A seven-year-old girl may set her buckteeth on fire or bite her pony, but never misses the silent rush of spring water deep within the greenest land, a land from which she, too, springs. Brimming with unsentimental innocence and the sensuality of furs, tobacco, and her mother's lemon lily beds, she draws a tough-minded, tomboy-accomplished portrait of a girlhood."--Jacket.

Presents a recipe-complemented celebration of America's apple renaissance that explores 120 of the fruit's considerable varieties, including the Black Oxford, the Knobbed Russet, and the D'Arcy Spice.

"When you open 'The Apple Lover's Cookbook', you will be surprised to find a guide to 59 popular varieties of apples. Each apple has its own complete biography with entries for origin, best use, availability, season, appearance, taste, and texture, and is accompanied by a color picture. Amy Traverso organizes these 59 apples into four categories -- firm-tart, tender-tart, firm-sweet, and tender-sweet -- and includes a one-page cheat sheet that you can refer to when making any of her recipes. One hundred scrumptious, easy-to-make recipes follow, offering the full range from appetizers, salads, soups, and entrees all the way to desserts. As bonuses, 'The Apple Lover's Cookbook' contains step-by-step color photographs of how to core and peel an apple, detailed notes on how to tell if an apple is fresh, and information about the best times and places to buy apples across the United States. In the introductions to each chapter, Amy takes you around the country to meet farmers, cider makers, and apple enthusiasts. At the end of the book you'll find her extensive list of the best apple products, apple sources, and apple festivals, making it easy to seek out and visit local orchards , whether you live in Vermont or California."--

From the preeminent writer of Taiwanese nativist fiction and the leading translator of Chinese literature come these poignant accounts of everyday life in rural and small-town Taiwan. Huang is frequently cited as one of the most original and gifted storytellers in the Chinese language, and these selections reveal his genius. In "The Two Sign Painters," TV reporters ambush two young workers from the country taking a break atop a twenty-four-story building. "His Son's Big Doll" introduces the tortured soul inside a walking advertisement, and in "Xiaoqi's Cap" a dissatisfied pressure-cooker salesman is fascinated by a young schoolgirl. Huang's characters—generally the uneducated and disadvantaged who must cope with assaults on their traditionalism, hostility from their urban brethren and, of course, the debilitating effects of poverty—come to life in all their human uniqueness, free from idealization.

Based on real events, this is the story of how the Golden Delicious apple came to be. Owners of a nursery in Missouri were looking for the perfect apple. It would be sweet and juicy. In the spring of 1914, they were astonished to taste just that apple.

Long before the natural-food movement gained popularity, Edna Lewis championed purity of ingredients, regional cuisine, and the importance of bringing food directly from the farm to the table. Gourley lovingly traces the childhood roots of Edna's appreciation for the bounties of nature. Full color.

“Pollan shines a light on our own nature as well as on our implication in the natural world.” —The New York Times “A wry, informed pastoral.” —The New Yorker The book that helped make Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts in America Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?