Books of the Season
We are super excited about the opening of M. Judson, Booksellers and Storytellers on Main Street in Greenville this summer, and as you might imagine, super super excited about the extensive section we’re building over there to celebrate all things edible. From cookbooks to backyard chickens, foodie memoirs and manifestos—we’re even planning a big display of edible magazines from across the country, because what better travel guide than the kind of local, sustainable storytelling you’ve come to know and love in edible Upcountry?
In what will become a regular column, here are a few of our favorite selections for summer.
The Picnic: Recipes and Inspiration from Basket to Blanket
BY MARNIE HANEL, ANDREA SLONECKER AND JEN STEVENSON
This beautifully-illustrated guide to summer outdoor eating is as much cookbook as guidebook as choose-your-own adventure. Including such helpful pages as “99 Uses for a Mason Jar,” perfectly packable recipes, every riff on a deviled egg you can think of, as well as lawn games, summer cocktails, checklists and shortcuts. How do you open that bottle of wine when you’ve forgotten the corkscrew? Read here.
Honey and Jam: Seasonal Baking from My Kitchen in the Mountains
BY HANNAH QUEEN
This fantastically talented young blogger and baker from Blue Ridge, GA has put together her first cookbook of old-fashioned Southern cakes, trifles and sweets, as gorgeous to page through as it is to sample. Celebrating local ingredients and Appalachian culinary tradition, as well as her own stunning photography of home, this book sings.
The Food Activist Handbook: Big & Small Things You Can Do to Help Provide Fresh, Healthy Food for Your Community
BY ALI BERLOW
From the co-owner of edible Vineyard and food activist extraordinarie comes a step-by-manageable-step guide to making your voice heard in your local food system. We love the scope and scale of this book, showing how even the smallest actions can make a difference, keeping family farms intact, the local economy strong and local food on our plates for generations to come.
FRANKLIN BBQ: A MEAT SMOKING MANIFESTO
By Aaron Franklin and Jordan Mackay
Franklin Barbeque, outside Austin, TX, has sold out of brisket every single day it’s been open. This book offers a master course in sourcing beef, building your smoker, curing your wood, as well as time-tested recipes for brisket, ribs, beans, slaw and more. If you love Texas barbeque, this is the next best thing to an overnight drive.
Sitting in Bars with Cake: Lessons and Recipes from One Year of Trying to Bake My Way to a Boyfriend
BY AUDREY SHULMAN
A memoir in recipes (and great illustrations), this book is a sweet and sharply funny chronicle of Ms. Shulman’s year spent baking cakes and bringing them to bars, in hopes of luring a man’s heart the old fashioned way—through his stomach. Not every plan is successful, but from Dreamcicle Cake to Double Chocolate Dump Cake, each bite offers a particular lesson in love.
