Favorite Books?

[Beva]

My husband gave me a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble book store and I'd like to see if you have suggestions for your favorite books? I like to cook and garden and read... so anything goes!
Thanks,
Beva

[Penelope]

I'm sure you will get reams of wonderful suggestions over the next few days. A book I've been enjoying over the past year, a gift from my daughter, is THE OLIVE AND THE CAPER by Susanna Hoffman. It's all Greek cuisine, but it's much more than recipes. Its design includes photos and columns detailing cultural background, food notes, customs, philosophy, history. For instance, "Though Archimedes is not thought of as a hero to fishermen, he was . . .he wrote the laws of flotation that influenced the design of ships. . ." One thing I found odd is that although basil grows wild all over Greece and the islands, it is rarely used in Greek cooking, but used mostly for "ceremonial" purposes. This book has created a great yearning in me for the Mediterranean, especially as I sit here in Idaho under 2 feet of snow and more expected. This snow is great for the water table, but hard of the psyche.

[Maggie]

I have no concept of living with snow, ice , fog or sludge all winter. We have a Mediterranean climate here in Adelaide although we do not have much water and I love to go to Northern New South Wales and see all the rivers. My nieces boyfriend is from Maine and talks about all the lovely lakes. I don't think I have seen a lake.
Anyway back to the topic books. I have many cookbooks from around the globe.
I am not Buddhist but I also have many Buddhist books and find their practices very helpful.
So with all the snow you all have I am going to recommend Cave In The Snow by Vicki Mackenzie.
It is an amazing account of how she lived in a remote cave 13,200 feet up in the Himalayas, cut off from the world by mountains and snow for 12 years!
And in summer she had two gardens one for food and one for flowers to feed her soul.
on page 84 she says " over the years I truly discovered the joy of turnips, they are a duel purpose vegetable, you have the wonderful turnip greens that are most nutritious and delicious and then you have the bulb, which can be dried and eaten in winter. She continues to talk about the food she ate rice, lentils and vegetables.
Yesterday I pulled our turnips from the ground and because we have such an abundance of greens at the moment I put the tops in the compost pile, I wish I had cooked them and then tossed them in good olive oil, we have good olive oil in Australia.

[Penelope]

I bought a bottle of Australian olive oil a while back, and it was very good. The highest up I've lived is close to 6,000 feet here in the American Rockies and that's high enough, and at our latitude (I'm at 4,800 feet now) gardening was/is a real challenge, especially on the flat at the bottom of a valley where the cold settles. hillside gardens my mother had did much better; the frost/cold would cruise on down the hillside and not stick around. I can't imagine getting much to grow at 13,000 feet, but I know people do it in the Andes too --varieties that are acclimatized, as well as planting diverse crops.

Are there novels out there in which gardening/homesteading (we don't hear that word much these days) figures prominently? I can't think of any right now. I know there have been murder mysteries revolving around food . . .

[Maggie]

There are all the " my life in France or Italy or Spain books".
I have Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, On Rue Tartin by Susan Loomis, I have so many books there are probably more there.
I like travel autobiographers from countries we here little about, I have read a lot of books about the silk road journeys or train rides across Europe.
I get most of my books for 1 or 2 dollars from a charity shop, most have never been read.

[Penelope]

But these are memoire books -- I'm thinking of fiction. I've also read the Peter Mayle books about his life in Provence. Lots of fun, as is the Mayes book.

[Maggie]

I see that is a good point about homesteading novels, we have lots of novels about the early Aussie settlers, the drovers wives who lived in the bush and had really hard lives. I used to read murder mystery novels but seem to remember the detectives living on beer, pickled onions and cheese sandwiches.
Fishing villages interest me, tales of when the seas were unpolluted and abundant with the fruits of the sea.
I remember buying fish straight from the boats, it was so sweet, lovely firm flesh and absolutely delicious.

[Beva]

One that I bought years ago for my Dad was "Tall Trees, Tough Men... It was a great book about how the loggers and logging camps in the Northeast operated. Another was "Lighthouse in my life" It was about a woman and her family who were Maine Lightkeepers. Another book about a trail blazing woman was called "Fly Rod Crosby" she was the very first female Maine guide and suffered from bronchitis or asthma (I think it was). She was something! She got out there with the boys! If I recall, she became a guide in the early 1900's. All of these books I have found at L.L.Bean.

My cousin before she passed away, was writing a homesteading novel about Arizona. I still have not found enough consecutive pages to string it totally together as she was in re-write! I keep trying!

I love the series by Diana Gabaldon (sp?) it is set in Britain and Scotland in the 1940's after the war. The heroine ends up time traveling through the stone portals such as Stone henge. There is a lot of good research done on the subject of herbalism, as the heroine is a medicine woman of sorts. One of the titles was Dragonlfy and Amber.

[Penelope]

"Homesteading" has several meanings. I wasn't talking about historical pioneer homesteading, but 1970s Back to the Land philosophies. Interpretations are interesting. . . .We never know when we're being understood.

[Beva]

I like them all!! Contemporary and historical! Are you familiar with the books by Tom Brown Jr. about his experience with an elder Apache man who taught him survival?

[Kathryn]

İ started buying a grass roots type mag when İ was 15 years old about back to the land and being self sufficent etc not a book but İ bought most of them over the years and they are still in print. İ really enjoyed them and could and did spend hours reading all the past issues İ had. When İ left Aus İ gave them to a friend who treasures them. İ had over 15 years worth of issues.

[Beva]

Maggie... you can come to Maine next summer and I'll take you out on our beautiful lakes!!!

[Maggie]

Sounds wonderful, maybe one day. I remember seeing your photos I was showing them to Sean and he felt very homesick, we were looking at the Autumn leaves and he talked about having a summer job testing water on some lakes, sitting in the boat all day. He remembers all the previous generations of his family being farmers and he says that is what he would like to do one day. He had a great time picking chervil and tarragon from our garden because he was going to make a lobster risotto for my niece for dinner, lucky girl.