Customer Reviews

From Seed to Skillet: A Guide to Growing, Tending, Harvesting, and Cooking Up Fresh, Healthy Food to Share with People You Love

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been only organi-curious to date, but I have two sisters who garden, Christmas is looming, and I knew they couldn't already have this just-released book. So after a little research I ordered one "test" copy. (As of now, there's not a lot of info on the Amazon page, but googling the book title turned up a publisher's site with sample PDFs and a worthwhile youtube video.)

The book is written 1st-person from Jimmy Williams' point of view, and he's a one-off. His stories bring to life his really unique background, with his both Native American and African/Gullah near ancestry. But each unusual story is there to illustrate concrete tips and techniques - e.g., how his grandmother used her rolling-pin as a time-saving gardening tool - he still uses one the same way. The style is vivid and brisk, engaging and inspiring, especially in the more anecdotal early chapters. The whole book is accessible and confidence-building for a garden-inexperienced reader like me, and doesn't assume any knowledge, though the very detailed discussions of techniques and special adaptations for urban growing in the later chapters build on the basic skills colorfully introduced early on.

The middle chapters comprise a businesslike, highly practical, and comprehensive guide for getting started simply, growing from seeds (or seedlings), with, for example, alternative illustrated plans for creating beds in urban gardens; and moving on to wider subjects - how to prepare, water, and maintain the soil and garden through the seasons, and to expand it over time to include more variety, recommended plant pairings and rotation, etc. Williams shares a wealth of his own soil amendment recipes and cultivation techniques he developed himself or inherited, and provides book references and links to his favorite suppliers. I strongly suspect that the originality of his approaches and insights will be of interest to experienced gardeners, not only to beginners like me. Reading the book is like having a generous, enthusiastic, and highly experienced friend who is "opening the bag" to you on how he succeeds at what he loves.

The next-to-last chapter covers his "edible A-list" of vegetables to grow and eat, with a page or two on each, including his tutorial on getting the best results, and listing his favorite varieties. The final chapter will likely be many readers' favorite - an excellent mini-cookbook of twenty traditional southern recipes from Williams' multi-sided background, updated for the modern kitchen and garden.

Williams' very strong and agreeable personality carries throughout the book - his unique voice is strong even in the businesslike, practical sections - and the whole book comes across as personal. At the same time, the writing is elegantly fresh, economical, and readable - Heeger, the co-author, doesn't "speak," but in the strong flow and imagery of the prose, "From Seed to Skillet" is a wonderful literary collaboration. In his blurb on the cover, Michael Pollan picked exactly the right phrase in describing Williams and Heeger as a "fine coaching team."

Finally, the book itself is beautiful - large and very handsomely printed, and filled with photography that is well-chosen, illustrates key processes, and is inspiring and plain luscious to look through. After reading it, I ordered a copy for each sister for Christmas (problem solved), and kept the test copy for myself. Enthusiastically recommended!

I saw this book listed as one of Amazon's Best Books and took a flier. Wow! It is exactly the kind of book our family (semi urban with a small back yard) have been looking for! Comprehensive, well written, brilliantly illustrated and laid out so that even a monkey can follow it. It lays out the entire process whereby the at home gardener can become if not entirely self sufficient then virtually supermarket produce-free within a single growing season. This book is an instant classic -- and revolutionary. Remember The Whole Earth Catalogue or Our Bodies, Ourselves, or even Doctor Spock's Baby Book? It is as revolutionary, as readable and as essential as those.

Length:: 3:10 Mins

This is a very extensive book with a great story and purpose. If you are interested in lowering your food bill and becoming less dependent on others, then this is your book!

XOXO

I have been working a small garden on the side of my house for almost two years now with very little knowledge and with less than perfect success. From Seed to Skillet has become my go to resource and already I am finding myself in a little Eden of my own. Written in a style that is completely accessible yet inspiring- If I had to use one word to describe Seed to Skillet it would be empowering. I have not seen a book so well laid out in a long time - It is beautiful, clear, easy to learn from and has a great sense of story to boot. All of my friends from full time farmers to those with a row of potted plants at their doorstep are getting a copy for their birthday this year.

A fiend of mine who's a hardcore gardener gave me this book because
I had been talking about wanting to grow some of my own food but am a
totally inexperienced gardener. My friend, on the other hand, has been
gardening for years, so I thought that if she liked this book it would be
completely over my head.
When it came, I started flipping through it because of the pictures, then
I was pulled in by Jimmy Williams's story and finally, his approach to
gardening was so clear and unintimidating that I started to get excited.
I've only had the book a week but already, I know where I'm going to
put my new vegetable garden and what I'm going to plant.

When we first started gardening a few years ago we struggled with the lack of information that was out in the gardening books, blogs, and forums about just how to grow our own food to eat. We bought many books, many of them best-sellers, and they were helpful... to a point. The garden the first year had some success, but not as much as we did once we met Jimmy & Logan Williams.

I guess you could say we're extremely lucky to see them every week at the farmers market. Not only do they have the most cheerful, happy, and yummy plants to buy, but those two are a wealth of information about gardening. And since they garden organically without man-made chemicals and pesticides, we knew we were getting the helpful information we really wanted.

So I had to laugh when I finally got the book! I see they must answer the same questions over and over, because they questions we had asked over the many different weeks seeing them at the farmers market were there in the book! Starting seedlings outdoors, fertilizer mixes, specs on the garden boxes... all that information and more is in the book!

Additionally, Jimmy would tell us what we could make with the plants we bought from him to grow. We got a collard tree from him because it looked so cool, knowing we could find a recipe for yummy collard green something or another. But then Jimmy would tell us how to make the burnt onion with collard greens. We didn't make it until we got the book, but let me tell you, this one recipe alone has become a staple in our household. Some burnt onion collard greens with bread and butter makes a really satisfying dinner at our house!

I recommend this book to even experienced organic gardeners because of Jimmy's unique take on gardening that he learned himself through experience. And even if you already have a green thumb, the stories and recipes are worth it themselves! Lucky you now that you can have Jimmy helping in your garden too!

I've been vegetable gardening ever since I can remember, first with MY grandmother (author of the book learned much from his grandmother) and then in 5th grade the L.A. City school system sent us off to gardening class once a week for a semester (those were the days). I plant some vegetables every year and I enjoy cooking what I grow. When a friend gave me this book I was so pleased to learn something new and valuable in each chapter. I'm excited all over again about this year's seeds and garden. Plus, I've already begun cooking up some of the author's grandmother's family recipes - they are easy to make dishes and delicious.

One of the most valuable lessons in this book is that, really, this is something everyone can do. As long as you can watch over a small container in a sunny spot, you can grow something to eat. If you haven't grown your own food, this book will easily teach you how. And if you're already a gardener, this book will teach you a few new things. Everyone will enjoy the photographs and recipes.

This book is by far the best of the bunch of the new grow-your-own type books mostly because of the lovely writing and the inclusion of it's subject Jimmy Williams. He and the author Susan Heeger bring the topic to life in an engaging and approachable way that takes advantage of both of their years of experience. Buy it for the all the info but you'll love the stories and personal touches even more.

the pictures are nice, recipes are okay... this is more of a story than a how-to. Wouldn't recommend as the content was lacking.

While there is some nice information in this book, there is a major error in the instructions for building a raised bed planting box. I ordered lumber based on the cut list in the box, so now I have to re-calculate, and buy more lumber to fix it. Very frustrating, and I've tried to reach the publisher and author about it, to no avail. Makes me wonder how many other errors there are in the book, the recipes, etc. Very disappointing.