English Garden History

Having Seaman Jenna as the mascot on the USS Vandegrift was never meant to be a statement or symbolic act, or to put the crew on the radars of four-star admirals. Jenna came aboard unannounced, a Christmas gift that brought instant joy to the crew and transformed a gray ship into a home for 225 sailors. Her addition was not pre-approved by the chain of command—contrary to military protocol. Before long, Jenna became a phenomenon—the only dog on a Navy ship since World War II—despite the best efforts to keep her from the public eye.

The world is enamored with Italy: its culture, art, food, and fashion, its beautiful landscapes, and famous cities-and, of course, its wine. If history can sometimes be throat-achingly dry, writer and wine expert Marc Millon serves up a delightfully fresh take on Italy's past, present, and future, best enjoyed with a glass in hand.

The Bourbon Drinker's Companion is a narrative journey into the heart of American craft distilleries, taking listeners from the well-known Jim Beam Booker Noe plant to craft whiskey brewers on the West Coast to the emerging new traditional distillers of the South, in search of America's best whiskey. Bestselling author Colin Spoelman is back to celebrate all things whiskey as he explores the effect branding, taste, region, and distilling processes have on America's beloved and most notorious drink.

In Dusty Booze: In Search of Vintage Spirits, journalist Aaron Goldfarb goes on an adventure in vintage spirits. This is an intoxicating story of obsessives on the hunt for old bottles of whiskey, tequila, rum, chartreuse—you name it—from estate sales, grandpa's liquor cabinet, and out-of-the-way and inner-city liquor stores that may just have a case or a few bottles lying around in the basement.

To discover the true role of Black women in the creation of American, and especially Southern, cuisine, Toni Tipton-Martin has spent years amassing one of the world’s largest private collections of cookbooks published by African-American authors, looking for evidence of their impact on American food, families, and communities and for ways we might use that knowledge to inspire community wellness of every kind. The Jemima Code presents more than 150 Black cookbooks that range from a rare 1827 house servant’s manual to modern classics.

Goose Island opened as a family-owned Chicago brewpub in the late 1980s, and it soon became one of the most inventive breweries in the world. In the golden age of light and cheap beers, John Hall and his son Greg brought European flavors to America. With distribution in two dozen states, two brewpubs and status as one of the twenty biggest breweries in the United States, Goose Island became an American success story and was a champion of craft beer. Then, on March 28, 2011, the Halls sold the brewery to Anheuser-Busch InBev, maker of Budweiser, the least craft-like beer imaginable.

The characters in Tasting the Past include a young Swiss scientist who set out to decode the DNA of every single wine grape in the world; Middle Eastern researchers who seek to discover the wines that King David drank; and a University of Pennsylvania academic who has spent decades analyzing wine remains. The science illuminates wine in ways no critic can, and demolishes some of the most sacred dogmas of the industry: well-known French grapes aren't especially noble.

In this remarkable culinary biography, Rae Katherine Eighmey presents Benjamin Franklin's experimentation with food throughout his life. At age 16, he began dabbling in vegetarianism. In his early 20s, citing the health benefits of water over alcohol, he convinced his printing press colleagues to abandon their traditional breakfast of beer and bread for "water gruel", a kind of porridge he enjoyed. Franklin is known for his scientific discoveries, including electricity and the lightning rod, and his curiosity and logical mind extended to the kitchen.

Chosen in his youth to be the "One Who Smells the Wind" for his Anasazi clan, Uhtatse becomes a part of every element on the mesa where his people have built their pueblos. As he meets with traders from distant lands, he learns of their unusual ways of living and begins sending his mind outward, searching for the enemies from the plains that he knows are waiting to kill them.

Greyhounds, streaks of lightning, were bred to be the fastest dogs on earth. Yet for decades, tens of thousands were destroyed, abandoned, and abused each year when they couldn't run fast enough. Scrappy Marion Fitzgibbon, whose empathy for animals made her relentless, became obsessed with saving these dogs - despite the overwhelming power of dog-racing proponents - when she became head of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Patrick E. McGovern takes us on a fascinating journey through time to the dawn of brewing, when our ancestors might well have made a paleo brew of wild fruits, honey, cereals, and botanicals. Early beverage makers must have marveled at the magical process of fermentation. Their amazement grew as they drank the mind-altering drinks, which were to become the medicines, religious symbols, and social lubricants of later cultures.

On the Salisbury Plain, only a few hours from the hustle and bustle of Central London, remains one of the greatest surviving relics of humanity's ancient past: the mighty stone circle of Stonehenge. Stonehenge is one of the most well-known ancient sites in the world, and an image of it raises numerous associations and emotional responses.

The Garden in Eden was filled with fruit-producing trees, sprouting plants and grasses, and gently flowing rivers. Adam, G-d's chosen king/priest, was called to cultivate the garden's fertile soil, to guard the sacred space from external enemies, and to rule over the Earth. After breaking covenant with YHWH, his king, Adam was banished to the field, a place of thorns and thistles, where he became a slave to the earth. The Temple Revealed in the Garden: Priests and Kings examines the Garden story from an ancient Near East perspective.

For years, there has been no doubt that widespread consumption of meat is both environmentally destructive and morally dubious. A growing chorus of scientists, health experts, and activists champion the benefits of a plant-based diet. Nevertheless, change has been slow to arrive, and the chasm between our appetites and our collective well-being seems impossibly vast. We know we must transition to a more plant-based world. But what would such a world look like, and how do we realistically get there? One group of people has been grappling with this question for decades: vegans.

Journeying through the decades, this book profiles a diverse array of influential hostesses. With each historic era comes iconic recipes, featuring a total of forty main cocktails and more than 100 variations that listeners can make at home. Whether its happy hour punch a la Martha Washington or a Harlem Renaissance-inspired Green Skirt, listeners will find that many of the ingredients and drinks they're familiar with today wouldn't be here without the hostesses who served them first.

Why do we cook? Is it just to feed ourselves and others? Or is there something more revolutionary going on? In Small Fires, Rebecca May Johnson reinvents cooking—that simple act of rolling up our sleeves, wielding a knife, spattering red hot sauce on our books—as a way of experiencing ourselves and the world. Cooking is thinking: about the liberating constraint of tying apron strings; the transformative dynamics of shared meals; the meaning of appetite and bodily pleasure; the wild subversiveness of the recipe, beyond words or control.

This book explores the idea that table activities - the mealtime rituals of food preparation, serving, and dining - lay the foundation for a proper education on the value of civility, the importance of the common good, and what it means to be a good citizen. The arts of conversation and diplomatic speech are learned and practiced at tables, and a political history of food practices recasts thoughtfulness and generosity as virtues that enhance civil society and democracy.

Paul Freedman makes the case for food’s vital importance, stressing its crucial role in the evolution of human identity and human civilizations. Freedman presents a highly enjoyable and illuminating account of food’s unique role in our lives, a way of expressing community and celebration, but also divisive with regard to race, cultural difference, gender, and geography. This wide-ranging book will be a must-listen for food lovers and all those interested in how cultures and identities are formed and maintained.

First, Catch is a cookbook without recipes, an invitation to journey through the digressive mind of a chef at work, and a hymn to a singular nine-dish festive spring lunch. In Eagle’s kitchen, open shelves reveal colorful jars of vegetables pickling over months, and a soffritto of onions, celery, and carrots cook slowly under a watchful gaze in a skillet heavy enough to double as a murder weapon. He is a tour guide to the world of ingredients, a culinary explorer, and thoughtful commentator on the ways immigration, technology, and fashion has changed the way we eat.

A New York Times Notable Book of 2019 selection, a New York Times Editors’ Choice book, and longlisted for the Story Prize—from the bestselling, highly acclaimed National Book Award nominee, She Was Like That is a “piercing, intimate, and exquisite” (Publishers Weekly) collection of new...