Product Description

Organic food is synonymous with premium quality, the deepest, richest taste, conscientious farming, and optimum health. It’s what we need to feed our kids, what we deserve to feed ourselves. And no one is doing more to popularize organic food that Myra Goodman, a mother, a creative cook, and most significantly, co-owner of Earthbound Farm, the world’s largest grower and purveyor of organic produce.

In Food to Live By, a dazzling full-color cookbook, Myra Goodman offers an utterly appealing, new casual style of cooking based on using the best ingredients, organic or otherwise. The dishes are irresistible: Sweet Corn Chowder. Spinach, Feta and Mushroom Quiche. Foggy Day Chili. Merlot-Braised Short Ribs with Cipollini Onions. Spicy Chicken Lettuce Wraps. Ginger Lime Salmon. Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Spiced Orange Sauce. Blue Cheese Smashed Potatoes. Coconut Lemongrass Sorbet. Cherry Panna Cotta. Farm Stand Carrot Cake. Plus, throughout are Farm-Fresh Ingredient boxes—on sorrel, corn, asparagus, artichokes— cooking and shopping tips, and health notes.

Before Myra and her husband, Drew, founded Earthbound Farm, they tended a small organic raspberry patch in Carmel, California—and Myra baked (and sold) amazing Raspberry Corn Muffins, plus jams, and more. Then Earthbound grew to offer organic lettuce mixes to local restaurants, and eventually the rest of the country. When The Organic Kitchen at Earthbound Farm opened, it was yet another venue for Myra, and the café’s chefs, to share delicious recipes and ideas. Now Food to Live By brings this organic revolution to everyone who cares about what they eat.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3672 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 402 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780761138990
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover
From Earthbound Farm's Myra Goodman and her Farm Stand's Organic Kitchen comes an appealing, casual style of cooking. Easy to prepare, the more than 260 recipes make a deliciously persuasive case for using flavorful, fresh, organic foods as often as possible. Take the Sweet Corn Chowder, which uses not only corn kernels for the soup, but also the stripped cobs to make a rich, herb-scented broth. Or Ginger Carrot Soup, which proves how even familiar vegetables take on a whole new intensity and character when raised organically. From Golden Tomato Gazpacho, Roasted Beet and Arugula Salad, Foggy Day Chili, and Merlot-Braised Short Ribs with Cipollini Onions to Farm Stand Carrot Cake and Cherry Panna Cotta, these are deep down delicious dishes for everyone who cares about what they eat.

About the Author
Myra Goodman and her husband, Drew, are co-owners of Earthbound Farm, which they founded in 1984. The Goodmans live in Carmel, California, with their two children.

Food articles by Linda Holland have appeared in The New York Times, and Gourmet and Hemispheres magazines. She lives in San Francisco.

Before working as the consulting chef for Earthbound, Pamela McKinstry owned and operated several restaurants on Nantucket. She lives in Carmel with her husband.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
It All Began with Raspberries I have a soft spot in my heart for raspberries. The ruby berries were the first crop my husband, Drew, and I ever grew, and they will always be one of my favorite fruits. When perfectly ripe, raspberries have a unique sweet-tart taste and delicate texture that seem to melt in your mouth. I’m so devoted to raspberries, we’ve given them a chapter of their own.

During our first few years, Drew and I spent June through October harvesting raspberries from dawn until dusk. For our fledgling roadside stand to be successful, we had to find every ripe berry, carefully lifting each thorny branch to discover any that were hiding underneath the leaves. It takes patient, gentle hands to pick the soft berries without crushing them. Even a half-pint basket fills slowly when the berries are so small. I was also teaching myself how to cook during these early years. Raspberries were often my main ingredient as I looked for creative ways to avoid wasting a single one. Although a few of my cooking experiments were disasters, some turned out to be fabulous, and I continue to make them to this day.

Corn muffins made with raspberries were one of my biggest successes. Customers stopping at our stand for a basket of berries would buy my freshly baked muffins to enjoy on the way home. Decades later, some of those early customers still reminisce about the muffins’ moist, natural sweetness. Raspberry jam was another best-seller that I continue to make every year for my family. Raspberries have so much natural pectin that all they need is sugar and low, slow cooking to turn the fruit into a jam we enjoy all year long.

Of course, raspberries are equally at home on a dessert plate. For a special event, our friend Sarah’s Chocolate Soufflés with Raspberry Sauce is our all-time favorite. Or for an easy, healthy treat, my mom’s recipe for frozen raspberry yogurt churns out rosy pink with lovely berry bits.

Our original raspberry stand is long gone, but three rows of raspberry bushes still grow behind our house. Now berry picking is a way to relax with my family after work. Even our dog, Jack, joins us. He seems to be able to smell which berries are ripe and has taught himself to pull the berries off the low-hanging branches with his tongue and eat them.

Some of our bushes were transplanted to the Carmel Valley fields beside our Farm Stand, where they continue to thrive. After all these years, our loyal customers still buy baskets of our organic raspberries and a muffin from the Farm Stand’s Organic Kitchen to nibble on the road. I hope you’ll enjoy our raspberry muffins as much as they do and discover other fresh ideas for bringing this succulent berry into your own life.

Raspberry Corn Muffins

Drew and I grew and sold organic raspberries during our early farming years, and I often baked raspberry muffins using any berries we had left over. Through my kitchen window, I could see customers driving up to our raspberry stand, and I’d quickly wash the flour from my hands before going outside to greet them. If their timing was right, in addition to baskets of fresh raspberries, they could buy a still-warm, invitingly moist corn muffin, loaded with fresh raspberries, to eat on the way home.

MAKES 12 STANDARD-SIZE MUFFINS

Butter for greasing the muffin cups (unless using cupcake liners)
1 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 cup finely ground yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs 1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 half-pint (about 11/4 cups) fresh raspberries or frozen (unthawed) unsweetened raspberries

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F. Butter 12 standard-size muffin cups or line them with cupcake liners.

2. Place the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl and whisk to combine well.

3. Place the eggs, honey, sugar, buttermilk, and melted butter in a small bowl and whisk to combine well. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir with a rubber spatula until just combined. Gently fold in the raspberries. Do not overmix the batter or the muffins will be tough. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling them almost to the brim.

4. Bake the muffins until they are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. 5. Place the muffin pan on a wire rack and let the muffins cool for about 10 minutes. Remove the muffins from the pan and serve warm. The muffins taste best the day they are made but, if necessary, they can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days. Reheat them in a microwave for about 10 seconds or in a preheated 350°F oven for 5 to 10 minutes.

Customer Reviews

Healthy Tasty Food
Myra Goodman and her husband, over 20 years ago, began their farm by offering passers-by a taste of their organic raspberries. Today, they own and operate the world's largest grower of organic produce. Food to Live By encourages readers to embark on a healthier way of life. Through organic food, people can live a cleaner life. This is not confined to only vegetarianism, but to meat, produce, wine and more. Packed with color photos of Earthbound Farm, as well as the recipes, this book teases the reader into trying easy-to-prepare, healthy recipes that packed with originality. If you are pressed for time, Goodman offers shortcuts by using organic packaged products, so you can have the flavor and health without the guilt. Included in this book are guides to greens, squash and more. Similar to The Organic Cook's Bible (by Jeff Cox, Wiley, April 2006, ISBN: 0471445789), but with more recipes. Delicious encounters within this book are: Chicken Piccata, Pumpkin Pecan Muffins, Portuguese Kale Soup, and Apricot and Almond Tart.

My new favorite cookbook!
The beautiful cover of this cookbook caught my eye but the personal story of Earthbound Farms beginnings and the fantastic recipes have held me captive and peaked my enthusiasm for organics and healthy cooking. Since buying this delightful cookbook I feel a bit obsessed with trying recipe after recipe. I was especially happy to see the meat recipes as I have wanted to incorporate more organic meat dishes into my family's diet, especially with 2 teenagers, but felt I lacked experience in buying and preparing meat. What a hit they have been with my family and unexpected surprise in this cookbook. The Sizzling Steak with Olive Sauce had everyone applauding mom's new found culinary skills and the Merlot Braised Shortribs elevated my status to "chef Mom".
In addition to expanding my repertoire of meals this cookbook has given me healthier versions of some family favorites. The Maple Walnut Muffins thrilled me with the small amount of sugar and no butter! Using a 1/4 cup of heart healthy canola oil instead of the 2 sticks of butter I was using in The Barefoot Contessa's Banana Crunch Muffins showed me how easy to eliminate fat and not sacrifice taste. My kids adored them as well as all 30 of the recipes I have tried to date.
This is a cookbook I highly recommend and bought for many family and friends. Its interesting tips and facts as well as beautiful, inspiring photos have made cooking 24/7 for my family a delight and pleasure.

Excellent General Cookbook. NOT just organic.
`Food to Live By' by Earthbound Farm co-founder, Myra Goodman and culinary `accomplices' Linda Holland and Pamela McKinstry announces itself as a cookbook for organic ingredients, and yet except for an emphasis on cooking with fruit, this is largely a brightly illustrated and joyfully assembled general purpose cookbook, I'm certain that the publisher, Workman, has a lot to do with the sidebar intensive style and better than average illustrations and snaps, but I also suspect much is owed to the great pleasure the author had in realizing this book.

The fact that the book does not quite fill its billing as a `healthy foods' book tempted me to give it only four stars. Two facts changed my mind. First, the hefty (402 pages) book lists for a scant $21.95 US. Second, the last Chapter 10 on `Basics' has excellent advice on making stocks. It may not be on the great reflective level of Deborah Madison or as finicky as the Culinary Institute of America textbook, but for a budget priced book, it is very good indeed.

I would still have demoted it to four stars if the general level of recipes was weak, but they are not. All of the traditional stuff is entirely up to snuff. For example, the pastry crust recipe hits all the right notes. The only caveat is that this and other recipes call for whole-wheat pastry flour, which I have not seen in my local megamart (Wegmans). On the other hand, I have seen lots and lots of `Earthbound Farm Organic' products in my very same Wegmans and the story of how Drew and Myra Goodman established their little business that could almost sounds too good to be true.

This story takes up the first 24 pages (the Roman numeraled ones in the introduction) of the book (which means that 402 pages are all recipes, no fluff). This is primarily a tale of being at the right place at the right time with the right idea. The couple leased a 2½-acre farm in Carmel Valley, California and started by raising and selling raspberries while they accumulated moneys to continue their educations. One thing lead to another, falling into great good luck when they hit upon the notion of bagged salad greens just at the time that the country was becoming a lot more interested in more diverse vegetables and in organic produce, all with the same convenience of other supermarket fare. The result is that our heroes now own and run the largest producer of organic vegetables in the country, and probably in the world.

While the book starts with raspberry recipes and continues with soup and salad recipes, great destinations for their organic produce, the chapters are really almost exactly what you would find in a conventional cookbook. As the author points out, eating organic is certainly NOT the same as being a vegetarian (however, I suspect it is much easier to find organic fruits and vegetables than it is to find organic milk, eggs, meats, and poultry, let alone `organic' fish). This brings me to one of the very few complaints about this book. There is no appendix of sources for some the things not sold by Earthbound Farm. This includes the whole-wheat pastry flour and Grade A dark maple syrup. Fortunately, there are very few such `hard to find' ingredients.

The very first thing that told me this was a book with which to be reckoned was the recipe for carrot soup. While I'm sure I have a recipe for this somewhere among my dozen soup cookbooks, this is the first time this has caught my attention, and I plan to make it at the first opportunity. Talk about liquid gold!

One thing this book brings to mind is a latter day `Whole Earth Catalogue' lifestyle; however, there is very little hint of the hippie ethos and lifestyle here. We are, after all, talking about the owners of a multi-million dollar business. Thus, there are not many bread baking recipes or detailed canning or pickling recipes, but there is a bit of all these things, including ice cream making and homemade granola.

While Workman publishing sometimes strikes me as something of a `cookbook factory' publisher like Chronicle Books, both publishers seem to maintain a high standard, and this book fits a higher standard than most. Every so many pages, we run across little presents such as `A Field Guide to Great-Tasting Tomatoes'. These are informative and great eye candy. My only caveat is that you don't consider them `complete' guides. They do, however, spice up this amazingly low-priced book.

The value of this cookbook to you is directly in proportional to you inclination to collect cookbooks, divided by how many cookbooks you have now. If you already have 500 cookbooks, this one won't add a whole lot beyond the uplifting story of how the family Goodman got rich raising lettuce. It does not have a strong `health food' emphasis (just look at the mac and cheese recipe') and aside from the very good stock making section, there are not a lot of cooking insights, but that doesn't mean it isn't a danged good cookbook. So, if you like vegetables and soups and a really nice collection of good recipes, this book will brighten your day.