The New Southern Garden Cookbook: Recipes for Enjoying the Best from Homegrown Gardens, Farmers' Markets, Roadside Stands and CSA Farm Boxes

Sheri Castle
University of North Carolina Press, 2011

The New Southern Garden Cookbook celebrates the pleasures of fresh, local, seasonal food. It honors the delicious, healthful home cooked meals made possible by the diverse array of fruits and vegetables grown in the South, and most of the rest of the nation as well. These pages hold good food for omnivores and vegetarians alike.

These days a garden doesn't have to be a plot of ground out back. We can grow things in deck boxes, patio pots, or in a square of a community garden. We can pick our fresh produce from local farmers' markets and roadside farm stands. We can join a CSA program to have a farm box of local fare delivered to our door each week. We can accept an armload of produce handed across the fence from a neighbor. With all these options, it's possible for many of us to eat from a bountiful garden without having to personally grow that garden.

This cookbook is organized by type of vegetable or fruit, built on the premise that when cooking with fresh produce, the ingredient, not the recipe, is the wiser starting point. When we start with the best of what's currently available, the cooking and the recipes follow easily.

There are over 300 clearly written, practical recipes designed for home cooks. The recipes—a mixture of new and familiar, original and classic, contemporary and traditional, ethnic and down-home—offer possibilities to all cooks, southern or otherwise. The pages are peppered with tips, hints, and great stories. It's good food and a good read.

It's told that Eden, a garden, was paradise itself. The same is not said of fast-food joints. To quote an old song, "We got to get ourselves back to the garden."

SIBA's Cookbook of the Year

I'm very proud that The New Southern Garden Cookbook was named Cookbook of the Year by the Southern Independent Booksellers Association. I've been fortunate to visit dozens of great independent bookstores around the South, and it's a great honor to be recognized by SIBA.

A New York Times notable book

The June 2nd, 2011 Sunday Book Review of the NYT included The New Southern Garden Cookbook in their list of 25 more notable cookbooks.

A Washington Post recommended cookbook

The December 13th, 2011 issue of The Washington Post included The New Southern Garden Cookbook as one of its also-recommended cookbooks of 2011. To quote the article, "Don't think of these as also-rans; a case could be made for bumping any of these titles up to top-10 status."

A Publishers Weekly reviewed book

On May 2nd, 2011, Publishers Weekly reviewed Sheri's recipe for Blasted Asparagus.

Buy the book:

The New Southern Garden Cookbook is available at your local bookseller (who could use your support), or the following online retailers:

Hardcover, $35.00, ISBN 978-0-8078-3465-7, 456 pp., 8 x 9.25 in., 24 color illustrations, index

More information:

• The New Southern Garden Cookbook Facebook page
• The New Southern Garden Cookbook blog
• The New Southern Garden Cookbook home page at UNC Press
• Media materials:
  • High-resolution author photo
  • High-resolution book cover
  • Other materials (food photos, interviews, etc.)