In Winter's Kitchen
Nonfiction

In Winter’s Kitchen

Growing Roots and Breaking Bread in the Northern Heartland
By
Beth Dooley
A Finalist for the Minnesota Book Award

“Personalizes the path from farm to fork with heart and skill. In Winter’s Kitchen is essential reading.”—WALL STREET JOURNAL
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A Finalist for the Minnesota Book Award

Beth Dooley arrived in Minnesota from New Jersey with preconceptions about the Midwestern food scene. Having learned to cook in her grandmother’s kitchen, shopping at farm stands and making preserves, she couldn’t help but wonder, “Do people here really eat swampy broccoli, iceberg lettuce, and fried chicken for lunch everyday?”

These assumptions quickly faded as she began to explore farmers’ markets and the burgeoning co-op scene in the Twin Cities, and eventually discovered a local food movement strong enough to survive the toughest winter. From the husband and wife who run one of the largest organic farms in the region to Native Americans harvesting wild rice, and from award-winning cheesemakers to Hmong immigrant farmers growing the best sweet potatoes in the country, a rich ecosystem of farmers, artisanal producers, and restaurateurs comes richly to life in this fascinating book. In Winter’s Kitchen “personalizes the path from farm to fork with heart and skill” (Wall Street Journal), demonstrating that even in a place with a short growing season, food grown locally and organically can be healthy, community-based, environmentally conscious, and—most of all—delicious.

ISBN
9781571313614
Publish Date
Pages
368
Dimensions
5.5 × 8.5 × 1 in
Weight
16.5 oz
Cover Art

Related Media

Watch: What Matters Most with Beth Dooley | Milkweed Editions
Watch: A Reading with Beth Dooley | Milkweed Editions
Author
Beth Dooley

Beth Dooley

Beth Dooley is the author of In Winter’s Kitchen: Growing Roots and Breaking Bread in the Northern Heartland, a Minnesota Book Award finalist. She has also written six cookbooks, including, with Lucia Watson, Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland (a James Beard Nominee).

Praise and Prizes

  • “Beth Dooley does much more than recycle familiar arguments for eating local; she personalizes the path from farm to fork with heart and skill. Unapologetically sentimental, deeply informative, and always practical, In Winter’s Kitchen is equal parts memoir, history and guidebook.”

    J. Ryan Stradal
    Wall Street Journal

  • “Beth Dooley is a dynamite cook and journalist. She’s the expert who is deep in the trenches with the farmers, the artisans, the hunters and the gatherers.”

    Lynne Rossetto Kasper
    host and co-creator, The Splendid Table

  • “There’s little as personal as the food we eat, yet it’s also as political a subject as any. Beth Dooley explores the intersection in this book.”

    Minneapolis Star Tribune

  • “Beth Dooley has written the book we need. You don’t have to be from Minnesota to apply the wisdom of In Winter’s Kitchen to your own life, wherever it takes place.”

    Deborah Madison
    author of Vegetable Literacy

  • “A reflection on the ways we become at home in the world, by coming into deep relationship with our food, our farmers, our family, and the land. Beth Dooley’s warm inviting prose invites you to the kitchen table and reminds you of what we’re all really hungry for—connection.”

    Robin Wall Kimmerer
    author of Braiding Sweetgrass

  • “[Dooley’s] descriptions of food will make you hungry (even the lowly potato: ‘delicate Colorado rose, buttery Yukon gold, nutty-tasting fingerlings’), but of even more interest are her portraits of the high school students, Hmong farmers, Native ricers and others who are making good, simple food their life’s work. Read this, and you’ll never look at your Thanksgiving cranberries the same way — or any other food.”

    Minneapolis Star Tribune

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