Each Little World

Timber Press holiday book deal

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Some of you may have read this post Thursday when I published it as part of my holiday book suggestions. To clear up any confusion, the books I mentioned in that post were not published by Timber Press. 

But Timber Press has more than enough variety to satisfy your gardening book needs, including the Rick Darke update of William Robinson (above) that I recently ordered or "Black Plants" (below) which I reviewed here. I am re-posting to give Timber Press their due and avoid further confusion.

    

 

I can imagine few gardeners who are unfamiliar with Timber Press. But the real question is whether you are signed up for their electronic newsletter. It contains info on all their latest — and upcoming — titles and authors. But it also has special offers and discounted prices on the great books they publish. This is not a plug solicited by Timber Press. Instead I want to let you know about this great deal in time for holiday gift giving.

In fact, I just ordered three books hot off Timber's press to give to myself! All were 30 percent off the cover price with free-shipping for orders over $30.00! That's better than I can find locally — even when Barnes and Noble or Borders offer coupons. More and more I am finding the big box book stores are no longer carrying the great assortment of home and garden titles I found in past years. Also, this way my dollars directly support Timber Press, a publisher I want to see survive and thrive!

So, sign up today and buy yourself a present!

    

 

UPDATE: I ordered my books from Timber on Tuesday, Nov. 24 and had them in hand before noon on Tuesday, Dec. 1st. I think that is pretty great timing given that both a holiday and a weekend fell between those two dates!

Books for getting and giving

I buy books — and review them here — all year long, so I have plenty of suggestions for gift giving. You can read all my reviews by clicking on "Books, Reading, Reviews" in the categories list at left to find a title that piques your interest or is just the thing for a friend. So, rather than re-capping all those books again, I'm just going to mention a few favorites here that may help to jump start your holiday shopping. 

    

 

If Monty Don wrote it, I will buy it. A man whose life was literally saved by gardening, and one who sees it as more than creating an outdoor living room. Also, he and his wife, Sara, garden together — which is always a selling point for me.

    

 

    

I can't afford to buy one of Angie Lewin's wonderful linocuts so I treated myself to a copy of "Garden Wisdom," a compilation by Leslie Geddes-Brown of the words of 50 wise and witty gardeners illustrated with 20 of Lewin's works. This is a compendium of practical advice with the poetical provided by Lewin's art. 

    

 

    

Like William Morris, Terence Conran has spent his life bringing good design concepts and products to the masses. This book looks at his home base, the source of the inspiration that he passes on to us. As quirky and personal as the man himself.

    

 

    

You can judge this book by its cover. It's all about the objects that capture our hearts and take over our homes. Cliff has made a career of writing books about "The Way We Live With ... ," and they are all worthy tomes. I bought my first Cliff book — "English Style" — in the early 1980s and I've never tired of it. Cliff is always in the forefront of the next approach to interiors and this book is no exception. Not new but also of note, is Cliff's "Home: 50 Tastemakers Describe What It Is, Where It Is, What It Means." 

Thanksgiving leftovers

Thanksgiving is not officially over at our house until I've detailed the holiday menu and table setting in my entertaining journal. Since our Thanksgiving dinner tends to have a widely varying cast size with appropriate menu changes, I like to note down what I did and how well it all worked out. This year I wanted to make some notes even more than usual since we brined our turkey for the first time ever. And Mark cooked it on the grill — another first. 

    

    

Even though Thanksgiving turned out to be one of the coldest days in November to be hanging around outdoors, Mark really enjoyed doing the turkey on the grill. Says he can't wait to try it again! And I loved having all that oven space for other dishes. 

Since Mark was totally in charge of the turkey this year, I made him write down all the things he'll want to remember for next time — especially the things we did differently than the recipe and directions suggested. It took a few days but he did it — all beautifully typed out! I added his notes to photocopies of the recipes we used and popped it all into plastic sleeves in my big T-day binder. 

    

 

Of course, the other sign that Thanksgiving is officially over is the end of the leftovers in the fridge. My T-day binder — as you might expect — has lots of clippings and photos of ways to use up those turkey leftovers. I usually make turkey vegetable soup since that's the best use for the carcass. But this year, I finally tried a soup recipe that I've been flipping past for years; always thinking to myself 'maybe next year.' 

Since I found the recipe when I was making my shopping list,  I added the few odd ingredients the recipe called for to the list so I was all set to go into the kitchen again on Friday morning. I made the broth that day and put the soup together the next. Tasted great and looked just like the photo (on the left below) from the very old issue of Gourmet magazine where I found the recipe. 

You've probably dealt with all your leftovers by now, so I offer the recipe for use with your Christmas turkey. Or you can be like me and file it away for next Thanksgiving!

    

TURKEY MULLIGATAWNY SOUP WITH CORIANDER

The carcass of a roast turkey, broken into large pieces

About 18 cups of water plus 1/3 cup of water

4 garlic cloves

three 1-inch pieces of peeled fresh gingerroot 

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 Tablespoons curry powder

3/4 teaspoon ground cumin

2 large boiling potatoes, peeled and chopped into cubes

3 cups chopped onion

3 carrots, peeled and chopped into cubes

1 cup canned unsweetened cocoanut milk

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

1/3 cup chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) plus sprigs for garnish

In a large stockpot combine the carcass with the water and simmer uncovered for three hours. Strain through a sieve into a large bowl and return the stock to the pot, and boil it until it is reduced to about ten cups.

Puree the garlic and ginger with the 1/3 cup of water. Heat the puree in the oil in a heavy kettle over moderately hot heat. Cook the puree, stirring, for a couple of minutes until the liquid is evaporated. Add the curry and cumin and cook for one minute. Add the potatoes, onions and carrots and five cups of the stock. Simmer the mixture, covered, for about 30 minutes until the vegetables are very soft.

Puree the mixture in a food processor in batches. Return to stock pot and stir in the remaining stock, the cocoanut milk and lime juice and simmer for ten minutes. Add the coriander and serve with a coriander sprig on top.

MY NOTES: The fact that this recipe calls fresh cilantro by the name "coriander," suggests how old it is. Since we had lots of turkey left over, and Mark is not all that partial to cream soups, we added shredded turkey to the soup for the last simmer.

December

    

Weather forecasters consider today — December 1st — the start of "meteorological winter." But here in southern Wisconsin the day looks like it will be a perfect Autumn specimen: sunny with a possible high near 50 degrees. The garden is filled with greenery, including ferns still standing at attention.   

      

 

November is slipping away into memory but it's too soon to discover exactly how memorable a month it's actually been. That's because weather stats for November aren't yet available on the federal government's National Climatic Data Center site.       

    

 

A visit there, however, will show you that October was just as awful as it seemed to most of us. According to the Feds, for the contiguous U.S., October was the the third coldest October in the 115 years they've been keeping records. The "cold was centered in the Midwest" and there was lots of rain, too, making October the third wettest such month on record.  

     

 

That's what was happening in the U.S. The rest of the world was another story. Taken globally, October was the sixth WARMEST on record while the worldwide ocean temperature for October was the fifth warmest on record. 

    

    

It's unlikely there is a gardener anywhere in the world who doesn't understand the meaning of these temperatures. We know that it's not about "global warming." It's about global climate change. There is no "new normal" to get used to. Normal is over. Now, every year is unlike any other year. We continue to keep records and prepare for the next growing season, but it is anyone's guess what to expect.

    

 

I am taking it one month — one day — at a time. Thus, I can only appreciate the fact that, locally, November was another story from our awful October: quite dry with brief cold spells that never seemed to last more than a day or two. They gave way again and again to warm sunny days that made it possible to keep working in the garden right to the end of the month. 

    

    

Mark was cutting dead foliage off the water lilies and sinking them in their pots to the bottom of the pond on Sunday, November 29. The pond hasn't frozen yet — pushing that date into December for the first time in many years. 

    

    

While I wait for November weather details to be collected and charted, I'm going to enjoy these last bursts of greenery before they get buried by the snow that will surely come. When and how much remain the unanswered questions.

    

 

For those of you who must have your plants identified, here they are: Autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora), European ginger, Pulmonaria longifolia 'Majeste,' creeping Thyme, ruffled Hart's Tongue fern (Asplenium scolopendrium 'Angustifolium'), unknown Foxglove seedlings, Arum italicum 'Ghost,' Geranium phaeum 'Little Boy,' and Bamboo (Fargesia nitida 'Jiuzhaigou').

 

Flora Mirabilis: A beauty of a botanical book

"Tis the season for looking at the latest books and looking back at the year's best books in time for holiday giving. No matter how much I publish — and read — on the Web, nothing beats a book in the hand. A beautiful publication like the recently released "Flora Mirabilis" is a great example of why I can still be hooked on a new garden book. Despite the hundreds of gardening books I already own (I stopped counting at 196 with 5 shelves still to go!), there is always room for a worthy addition. 

"Flora Mirabilis" — the title alone is enough to catch a gardner's eye. But the glossy black cover with a red and green Jamaican dogwood and red and green marblelized endpapers might be enough to seal the deal. "Flora Mirabilis" — subtitled "How Plants Have Shaped World Knowledge, Health, Wealth and Beauty: An Illustrated Time Line" — is a joint project between two venerable and highly respected institutions, National Geographic and Missouri Botanical Garden. As such, it has the scholarship to match the wealth of incredible botanical illustrations that appear on every page of the book.

    

 Missouri Botanical Garden    

    

"Flora Mirabilis" is divided into six concepts and time periods: Origins, Discovery, Exploration, Enlightenment, Empire, and Science. Each section opens with a double-spread illustration, followed by a one page introductory essay and a double-spread timeline. Within each of those six sections are double-page layouts on the noteworthy plants of the given era. Date palm, wheat, rice and the olive are the plants of the Origins era (Prehistory to 1450). 

While it is an excellent idea to highlight such plants, it can be disconcerting to be reading along in the middle of a sentence and then turn the page to what initially looks like a new section. It takes a couple of minutes to figure out how the book is organized and that you just need to turn the page again to find the continuation of your text. Once you've realized that, then you can jump around randomly to read about your favorite introductions.

The text is straightforward and highly readable and — with a subject such as this — touches on almost any aspect of plants that might interest you: myths, medicine, art or adventure. Of course, the book includes a formidable index, as well as a list of titles for further reading and the source of all the illustrations. You can read "Flora Mirabilis" as a serious study or just have fun looking up all your favorites to see what the book has to say about them. You'll find entries on everything from African violets to American ginseng, from yams to yews, along with Dr. Seuss, Johnny Appleseed, Thomas Jefferson and one of my personal favorites, Queen Hatshepsut. (She organized the first known botanical expedition). 

    
 

At 256 pages, the book is not an unmanageable tome. In fact, author Catherine Herbert Howell and the two organizing institutions, beautifully manage an almost impossible feat in pulling together such a vast trove of information and illustration. And at $35, it's a bargain that belongs on the bookshelf of every gardener. You can purchase the book directly from National Geographic here.

Disclaimer: National Geographic contacted me about reviewing this book and provided a copy as recompense. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Thanksgiving bouquet

All through the holiday season gorgeous bouquets are beckoning at florists and grocery stores. But I try to keep making my own arrangements directly from the garden until the last possible moment. While there is not enough left in my garden to create the huge arrangements of summer, there is still plenty to augment something purchased at the grocery store. Here I used a lacy 'Redbor' Kale as the store-bought starting point, and then walked around the yard picking and clipping. The quickest and easiest part of the whole Thanksgiving prep!  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM OUR HOUSE TO YOURS!

Plants include Epimedium, Annabelle Hydrangeas, and the giant fuzzy leaves of Heuchera vilosa 'Brownies.'