The Cook and The Gardener by Amanda Hesser

Today's book recommendation: The Cook and the Gardener : A Year of Recipes and Writings for the French Countryside by Amanda Hesser
 
This award winning book  offers a lovely blend of cookbook along with garden stories that allow you to live vicariously with Hesser on a culinary school of estate in burgundy France. 
 
Since the book is about traditional French gardening and cooking, it also captures the local customs and wisdom cultivated in provincial France.
 
Each chapter covers a month. The book can be read one season at a time, following along with the changes on the calendar and in the harvest.   Each season offers a recipe for stock.
 
The little stories about the gardener are delightful and there are wonderful tips that gardeners will appreciate appreciate. For instance, Amanda learned not to pick cabbages before a frost because the frost enhances the flavor. There’s a lovely recipe for pumpkin soup as well as all kinds of preserves.
 
This is my favorite kind of book because it’s part cookbook, part garden story, and part history.
 
Best of all, the tone is cozy-cozy,  charming,  and conversational.