book reviews and give away!

Dear Readers,

Ellen & Ellen are offering two new and very different books as giveaways. We've reviewed them both below and look forward to judging  your comments! Write a few sentences about your favorite discovery growing edibles (if you want book # 1) or orchids (if you want book # 2).  It might be something most gardeners know but you unearthed for yourself, or a secret you're ready to share with the world. 

We're looking for personal experiences, either positive or negative. Please post your comments by Oct.12th and we'll announce by Oct. 19th.  And please don't enter for both books; we want to spread the literary joy as wide as we can.

The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook, by Leeann Lavin is a lavish book of conversations with farmers from the fertile North and South Forks of Long Island, along with top local chefs. Leeann  profiles these Farmers and Chefs as co-dependents in the dance of the local harvest. Large and lush photographs by Lindsay Morris & Jennifer Calais Smith make you want to run this weekend to one of the fabulous restaurants that base their menus on local and seasonal crops at their freshest.

Farm-to-plate is a hot topic these days, and on Long Island it makes a lot of sense because the crops are so diversified; from seafood of all types caught by local fishermen, to local wine from the vineyards, cheeses, and of course the greens, beets, corn, tomatoes, raspberries; fruit and veg of all kinds. Recipes look extremely flavorful, yet simple to produce, enticing enough to try.

In a regional book of this kind, part of the fun is in personal recognition; my moment came in the profiles of Chef Eberhard Muller and his wife Pauline Satur of Satur Farms.  I had dined in Paris at the Michelin three-star L'Archestrat where Muller had been chef and where I  first tried a miraculous new concept called a tasting menu.  Now living in Manhattan, I order my groceries online from Fresh Direct, which offers a special category of local foods; Satur Farms greens have often been on my marketing list.

This book will surely please you if you have any connection at all to the area, or know someone who does. ESP

Aphid in my Eye gives the reader a nostalgic glimpse into a bygone era of orchid growing, when orchid societies stressed SOCIETY and orchids were high-priced rarities, rather than big box store loss leaders.  Tom Powell's memoir is a humorous, fast read, full of idiosyncratic caricatures and stories just weird enough to be believable.  Most of all it's a love letter to his wife Betty, with whom he survived encounters with a wife-swapping deacon, a psychic who spoke to orchids, and a chauffeured orchid thief who cried poverty.  Aphid in my Eye is an entertaining book, written with horticultural know-how and love. EZ