Americas Garden

When Wicked Comes Calling . . . When a mysterious stranger finds his way into her bedchamber and offers his help in landing a duke, Lady Felicity Faircloth agrees—on one condition. She’s seen enough of the world to believe in passion, and won’t accept a marriage without it. The Wallflower...

Fear rocked Chip St. Clair's world. As a boy, he never knew what would set his father off--maybe the ice cubes had melted in his glass of Tab, maybe dinner was overcooked or undercooked or the gravy was too runny. Regardless, the beatings always came. As did the twisted games of cat and mouse - being thrown from a rowboat into frigid Lake Michigan, the middle-of-the-night moves to different states, or being left to dangle over a 10-story balcony while his father watched from inside.

How did a bar like P. J. Clarke’s saloon become the beloved watering hole for Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy, Rocky Marciano, and Buddy Holly (not to mention the fictional Don Draper)? And what was it about their bacon cheeseburger that caused Nat King Cole to pronounce it "the Cadillac of burgers"? Established in 1884 and bought in l904 by Patrick "Paddy" Joseph Clarke, this Irish saloon in a beautiful Victorian building on the corner of Third Avenue and 55th Street has captivated generations of New Yorkers.

The year is 1925. It is sixty degrees below zero. The wind sweeps tons of snow over the deep-frozen Alaskan landscape. The nearest railhead is seven hundred miles away. Airplanes cannot fly. The way to Nome is blocked by a treacherous frozen sound, an icebound port, and mountains to the west. But there is a diphtheria epidemic in Nome. The children need serum from the outside world if they are to survive. Their only hope is a few chosen Eskimo drivers and their teams of dogs.

Gallo Be Thy Name is the portrait of an American dynasty, chronicling the family's history from Prohibition and the Great Depression to its roots in organized crime, its impact on the roiling farm labor movements of the 60s and 70s, and ultimately to its domination of America's wine market. The Gallos rode the turbulent currents of history to triumph, with iconic brothers Ernest and Julio steering the ship. But beneath the carefully polished surface of E. & J. Gallo Winery is a sweeping story of passion and power — swirling with rumors of murder.

America’s Romance with the English Garden is the story of tastemakers and homemakers, of savvy businessmen and a growing American middle class eager to buy their products. It’s also the story of the beginnings of the modern garden industry, which seduced the masses with its images and fixed the English garden in the mind of the American consumer. Seed and nursery catalogs delivered aspirational images to front doorsteps from California to Maine, and the English garden became the look of America.

Chez Panisse opened its doors in 1971. Founded by Alice Waters, the restaurant is rooted in her conviction that the best-tasting food is organic, locally grown, and harvested in ecologically sound ways by people who are taking care of the land for future generations. The quest for such ingredients has always determined the restaurant’s cuisine, and over the course of 40 years, Chez Panisse has helped create a community of local farmers and ranchers.

The decade-long Great Depression, a period of shifts in the country's political and social landscape, forever changed the way America eats. Before 1929, America's relationship with food was defined by abundance. But the collapse of the economy, in both urban and rural America, left a quarter of all Americans out of work and undernourished - shattering long-held assumptions about the limitlessness of the national larder.

Uncommon Grounds tells the story of coffee from its discovery on a hill in ancient Abyssinia to the advent of Starbucks. In this updated edition of the classic work, Mark Pendergrast reviews the dramatic changes in coffee culture over the past decade, from the disastrous "Coffee Crisis" that caused global prices to plummet to the rise of the Fair Trade movement and the "third-wave" of quality-obsessed coffee connoisseurs.

Acclaimed cookbook author Jessica B. Harris weaves an utterly engaging history of African American cuisine, taking the listener on a harrowing journey from Africa across the Atlantic to America, and tracking the trials that the people and the food have undergone along the way. From chitlins and ham hocks to fried chicken and vegan soul, Harris celebrates the delicious and restorative foods of the African American experience and details how each came to form an important part of African American culture, history, and identity.

A work of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, The Unsettlers traces the search for the simple life through the stories of new pioneers and what inspired each of them to look for - or create - a better existence. Captivating and clear-eyed, it dares us to imagine what a sustainable, ethical, authentic future might actually look like.

In the 19th century, American meals were about subsistence, not enjoyment. But as a new century approached, appetites broadened, and David Fairchild, a young botanist with an insatiable lust to explore and experience the world, set out in search of foods that would enrich the American farmer and enchant the American eater. Kale from Croatia, mangoes from India, and hops from Bavaria. Peaches from China, avocados from Chile, and pomegranates from Malta. But Fairchild's finds weren't just limited to food.

Este libro es el resultado de la extraordinaria investigación y rescate de más de un centenar de recetarios de todos los tiempos. Después del éxito de La comida en la historia argentina, Daniel Balmaceda continuó rastreando e indagando sobre las costumbres desconocidas de la cocina y la mesa de los argentinos. ¿Cómo comíamos antes de la industrialización de los alimentos?

Food consumption is a significant and complex social activity - and what a society chooses to feed its children reveals much about its tastes and ideas regarding health. In this groundbreaking historical work, Amy Bentley explores how the invention of commercial baby food shaped American notions of infancy and influenced the evolution of parental and pediatric care. Until the late 19th century, infants were almost exclusively fed breast milk. But over the course of a few short decades, Americans began feeding their babies formula and solid foods....

Her Korean name was Ah-Chim-Hai, meaning Flame-of-the-Morning. Af our-year-old chestnut-colored Mongolian racehorse with a white blaze down her face and three white stockings, she once amazed the crowds in Seoul with her remarkable speed. But the star racer was soon sold to an American marine and trained to carry heavy loads of artillery shells up and down steep hills under a barrage of bullets and bombs. The marines renamed her Reckless. Reckless soon proved fearless under fire, boldly trekking alone through the fiery gauntlet, exposed to explosions and shrapnel.

In the 1970s, New York City was plagued by crime, filth, and an ineffective government. The city was falling apart, and even the newly constructed World Trade Center threatened to be a fiasco. But in April 1976, a quarter-mile up on the 107th floor of the North Tower, a new restaurant called Windows on the World opened its doors - a glittering sign that New York wasn't done just yet. In The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World, journalist Tom Roston tells the complete history of this incredible restaurant, from its stunning $14-million opening to 9/11 and its tragic end.

In April 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama planted a kitchen garden on the White House's South Lawn. It is a garden with roots in the American past, stretching back to George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, but it is also a garden very much designed for America's future. As fresh vegetables, fruit, and herbs sprouted from the ground, this White House Kitchen Garden inspired a new conversation all across the country about the food we feed our families and the impact it has on the health and well-being of our children.

From farm-to-table restaurants and farmers markets, to support for fair trade and food sovereignty, movements for food-system change hold the promise for deeper transformations. Yet Americans continue to live the paradox of caring passionately about healthy eating while demanding the convenience of fast food. Rooted Resistance explores this fraught but promising food scene. This book wagers that socially responsible agrarian mythmaking should be a vital part of a food ethic of resistance if we are to rectify the destructive tendencies in our contemporary food system.

In Drinking in America, best-selling author Susan Cheever chronicles our national love affair with liquor, taking a long, thoughtful look at the way alcohol has changed our nation's history. This is the often-overlooked story of how alcohol has shaped American events and the American character from the 17th to the 20th century.

A leading dog-blogger offers a tour of military working dogs' extraordinary training, heroic accomplishments, and the lasting impacts they have on those who work with them. Maria Goodavage here tells heartwarming stories of modern soldier dogs and the amazing bonds that develop between them and their handlers. Beyond tales of training, operations, retirement, and adoption into the families of fallen soldiers, Goodavage talks to leading dog-cognition experts about why dogs like nothing more than to be on a mission with a handler they trust.