Slow Food Nation's Come to the Table: The Slow Food Way of Living [Hardcover]

Katrina Heron (Editor), Alice L. Waters (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2008

Where do great meals begin? Come to the Table brings you straight to the source of wonderful flavors, beauty, abundance, and pride of place—the small farms of California and the people who tend them season after season.

Alice Waters, the celebrated chef and food activist, introduces a remarkable group of resilient fresh-food artisans who are committed to keeping our food supply delicious, diverse, and safe—for humans and the planet.

Meet the folks down on the farm and learn firsthand about the back-to-the-future small-farm economy that’s gaining strength across America.

Discover new tastes and memorable traditions. Explore local flavors, wit, and wisdom along with the universal values of a food system that is "good, clean, and fair." Recreate a range of sumptuous yet simple meals with the farmers’ own family recipes—including breakfast crostata and fresh-fruit jams, stuffed artichokes and black-eyed peas, chile relleno casseroles, pulled pork, and cheesecake.

Sustainable food is real food. Come to the table, and help yourself!

 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

One of America’s most influential chefs, Alice Waters launched a delicious revolution in 1971 when she introduced local, organic fare at her Berkeley, California, restaurant, Chez Panisse. Waters brought her vision for edible education to public schools through the Chez Panisse Foundation, which operates the Edible Schoolyard program. A recipient of the Natural Resources Defense Council Force of Nature Award, she is vice president of Slow Food International.

Katrina Heron is a journalist who has been editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and a senior editor at The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times Magazine. She is a director of the Chez Panisse Foundation and chair of the board of Slow Food Nation.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Modern Times; First Edition edition (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1605298956
• ISBN-13: 978-1605298955
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 8.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #908,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A nice attempt, January 19, 2009

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smhs - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Slow Food Nation's Come to the Table: The Slow Food Way of Living (Hardcover)

Slow Food Nation's "Come to the Table" is a pleasant little book. The chapters on the farmers are nice, but really just a brief summary of their lives. As a reader I would have appreciated a little more depth, but that may not have been the intent. What did come through on these glimpses of life was that these farms are not long-term sustainable without support from the public. Many of these farms depend on leased land which could easily disappear.

The recipes are fairly basic. This is no great surprise as they are largely taken from the farmers, not professional food writers or chefs. I will likely try a couple.

I suspect this book is most useful if you live in California where the farms are. For the rest of us, it should encourage us to seek out our local farming community where we can learn the history of our farmer in a short conversation and develop a relationship of mutual support.

I cannot recommend this as a book. While the slow food movement is important, this book is a bit thin in more ways than one. This is one that you need to see a copy of before you decide to purchase.

5 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful book, May 5, 2009

By 

cook mom "cook mom" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Slow Food Nation's Come to the Table: The Slow Food Way of Living (Hardcover)

I bought this book because our friends are one of the farms featured. I really liked the stories and the pictures. Great for California.