I normally don’t read cookbooks, so you won’t often see them reviewed in my blog, but this is one of the rare exceptions. The reason it’s readable is that the author is basing the book on the backyard garden he planted, and goes over what he’s done in that garden in loving detail.
This is the kind of the book that makes me want my own house. He describes exactly the kind of garden I want – an urban backyard crammed full of as much as the gardener can fit. Now, he’s in London, so I have to take a lot of what he says in the book with an enormous grain of salt, as I’m three or four USDA zones behind him, but it was great inspiration. I blew through the whole thing in a day, and that was reading everything.
I’ve got some notes down about finding some alpine strawberries, and I finally looked up exactly why it is that gooseberries and currants are banned here in Maine (white pine blister rust – if you’re interested). I so need a yard of my own…