From apples to zucchini, author Sheri Castle’s newest cookbook walks you through the pleasures of fresh, local, and seasonal food with more than 300 recipes. Castle knows the way to a Southerner’s heart, by way of the garden. The New Southern Garden Cookbook doesn’t exclude carnivores, however. Castle includes recipes that appeal to anybody who appreciates homecooking enhanced by the South’s spread of fruits and vegetables. She organizes the cookbook by main ingredient. So if your neighbor brings over a bunch of vine-ripened tomatoes, flip to the tomato chapter, and choose from about 15 recipes, including fresh tomato pie.
The University of North Carolina Press. 2011, 456 pages, hardcover, $35.
Split-rail fences don’t shout “keep out.” They lean, they shift, they invite. And in western North Carolina, they remind us that some lines are meant to hold, not harden.
Each May, spring climbs nearly 3,000 feet to the seat of Alleghany County. Here, as the rhododendrons blush, a beloved mountain town welcomes visitors with its food, art, and flourish of color and creativity.
Brief but delicious, soft-shell crab season is cherished by diners as well as the folks who work around the clock to put these native pinchers on our plates.
When it comes to poultry, the best is raised close to home.
