food and gardening

  • BiblioBagels: My Adventures in Bagel Chemistry (Part 1)

    Seattle is not a bagel town. It’s nearly impossible to get a genuine bagel here. Sure, lots of places claim to sell the real thing, but they’re only a pale imitation. And don’t even get me started on bagels from a grocery store—those are just lifeless circles of bread masquerading as bagels. What is a… Continue reading

  • Mushroom Mania

    Autumn in Seattle means rain and lots of it. While many Seattle residents are indoors moaning about the miserable weather, a few of us are rubbing our hands with glee as the drops fall. We are the wild mushroom hunters, and this is our favorite time of year. On any given fall day after it rains,… Continue reading

  • Garlic Lovers – Ready, Set, Sow!

    In Puget Sound gardens, it is time to reap. Even if many of the tomatoes on the vine are still green. For garlic-loving gardeners, it’s time to sow.    Garlic is not about immediate gratification. Garlic is sown now (October ideally), and then harvested in July or early August. Some sources recommend planting garlic in… Continue reading

  • Cooking with Gas

    These are not your everyday cookbooks. When you’re tired of the same old thing for dinner, try one of these unconventional possibilities. Kafka’s Soup: a complete history of world literature in 14 recipes by Mark Crick. This guy is smart!  Food + fiction = satisfaction. Raymond Chandler cooks lamb with dill sauce; “before I knew… Continue reading

  • What I Made: Rich Chocolate Ice Cream. Mmmm. Jealous yet?

    Seattle is home to a thriving DIY culture.  As part of an occasional series of posts, we feature hand-made items created by staff at The Seattle Public Library and the library books, CDs, and DVDs that showed them how to do it themselves. We hope you’ll draw inspiration from their creations and check some of… Continue reading

  • Farmers Markets

    With the sun beginning to peek out of the sky a bit more lately, it’s now the time for the seasonal farmer’s markets to be opening. The Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance’s calendar lists Magnolia opening this Saturday, May 23, followed by Phinney on Friday, May 29, and Lake City on Thursday, June 4. The Columbia City Farmers Market… Continue reading

  • Before Autumn Leaves

    Before autumn leaves, settle down into a bounty of words, sights and sounds that crackle with the color and energy of the season.  Then, take a few moments to take in an eclectic array of books and CDs that’ll bring an extra spark to warm the chill heading up that frosty hill. Let’s start with some… Continue reading

  • Nightstand Reading: Matt Ruff reads the gamut, from War to Pie.

    Editor’s Note: Matt Ruff will be reading from his 2008 PNBA Book Award-winning book Bad Monkeys, freshly released in paperback, at the Ballard Branch Library this Thursday, August 21at 6:30 p.m, in conjunction with Secret Garden Books.  (Matt will also be reading at Queen Anne books on Tuesday, and coming up in October he will be reading from a new work at the Richard Hugo House). If… Continue reading

  • Book Review: Real Food (and more)

     Now I know that my mom really meant well on our family’s liver dinner night after reading Nina Planck’s guide to why she eats lard, raw milk, and organ meats in Real Food: what to eat and why. An intelligent gathering of research on good eating, this book emphasizes traditional foods: whole foods, animal fats,… Continue reading

  • Celebrate Seattle’s Farmers Markets!

    Seattle has long been famous for the Pike Place Market, which will be 101 years old this August. The Seattle Public Library has some fantastic books to help the average shopper explore both the Pike Place and neighborhood farmers markets, such as The Farm to Table Cookbook: The Art of Eating Locally by Ivy Manning… Continue reading

  • Tomatoes – are they safe?

    And what about lettuce? avocados? cantaloupe? Here are some links to university and government research with updates on how to be sure the fresh produce you bring home is safe to eat as well as nutritionally sound and just plain delicious. Salmonellosis Outbreak in Certain Types of Tomatoes by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.  The FDA… Continue reading

  • Frances Moore Lappé and Local Food Policy

    My local eating adventures have led me to think about issues such as who has access to local food, how housing developments are eclipsing nearby farmland and if another flood like the one in Lewis County is apt to destroy more farms and dairy herds anytime soon.  I’m certainly not the only one. For decades Francis Moore Lappé… Continue reading