Root to Leaf: A Southern Chef Cooks Through the Seasons

Great book dedicated to the veggie. I am from the South and fortunate to have several Farmer's Markets with locally grown products available. I have been cooking a long time and my current philosophy is to try a new product each week. Instead of the same old standby dishes, I am trying to cook one new dish or product each week or so. I keep a log of all of the new veggies or products that we try. We go to the Farmer's booth and ask them what do they have that is different. Eggs, meat, cheeses and veggies are all considered. Chef Satterfield presents the veggies as the star of the meal. He is NOT a vegetarian. Historically the South was poor and meat was a seasoning to all of the veggies available and not the main event. The book is organized by the vegetable. I purchased the Kindle version and like it. I was skeptical about a cookbook that you cannot open and place on the counter.

I was looking for a Southern cookbook for a friend who is a healthy eater and not from the South. This book is beautiful - it's divided up according to seasons, and each vegetable / fruit gets its own section explaining the vegetable, how to identify and buy it, and what to cook with it. It makes a great present for someone who may not be familiar with all the produce in this region and what to do with it (okra, anyone?). That said, the book mostly includes produce anyone in the US would recognize (e.g. lettuce, radishes, rhubarb), so it's a great mix.The best thing about this cookbook is that you can really use it on a daily basis to cook healthy food. The photography is gorgeous, so this makes a great tabletop book, but it is also incredibly useful. Most of the recipes are not too complicated and you can cook them every day. I was pleasantly surprised, since fancy cookbooks often present complex, useless, time consuming recipes with too many ingredients that are a pain to buy.

I first read of this cookbook via the "Garden & Gun Magazine" Email blog, a magazine that highlights Southern living in it finest... a beautiful well designed magazine. The "Root to Leaf" cookbook looked delightful and I am always looking for ways to incorporate more vegetables in my diet anyway. The Amazon reviews are all 5's and are glowing. As mentioned, the photography is beautiful and the narrative that accompanies each recipe reads like a book. Finally, it is designed by Seasons. I am thrilled with this superb cookbook. When I get to Atlanta - as I live in Orlando - I will be sure to eat dinner at the author - Steve Satterfield's restaurant - Miller Union. I am sure that this restaurant - just like the book - is first class. And for those of you - like me - who say - I don't need one more cookbook - get this one and smile at the lovely food you can prepare with vegetables. Bonne Appetite!

Since I had Covid-19, my tastebuds haven’t been the same. Meats with the exception of fish (surprisingly), is now very distasteful and I’ve been incorporating more vegetables into my protein limited diet. I’m from the South but am not by any means a Southern cook LOL. This book allows me to cook traditional Southern vegetables in so many tasteful ways!

If you are familiar with Nigel Slater or Deborah Madison, many of the recipes in this book will be unsurprising. However, there are some recipes with a distinct southern flair: red pepper and peanut romesco to be served with confit new potatoes, a panzanella using vidalias, celery , cucumbers, basil, tomato and sourdough with a light sherry vinegar dressing. There is also fried rice with broccoli and mustard greens, and an interesting mustard roasted cauliflower. For the colder months: creamed savoy cabbage with mushrooms and buckwheat pasta, a kohlrabi, celery root, tangerine and pomegranate salad, and an amazing uncooked meyer lemon sauce made with the entire lemon and a few other things in the blender.I think this is a wonderful book if it your first seasonal vegetable exploration, with some interesting twists if it is not.

Adding information about shopping at local markets. How to use different plants when preparing food. Well written.

This is a heavy book to hold and done well graphically. Being a librarian, I always have opinions on how books are organized. The seasons of the year theme goes far in emphasizing the author's message of "eat what's growing now". When I reach for a cookbook though I use the index and this one seems well done. People who like cookbooks tend to enjoy just reading them. This is a satisfying cookbook to read though the weight might be a bit much for an older person. I gave it a 4 rather than a 5 because most recipes would require me to go shopping for ingredients.

This cookbook, like most new cookbooks, is very visually inspiring. To me, what sets Root to Leaf apart is its applicability.Like most people I want to cook more seasonal vegetables, but oftentimes cookbooks feature exotic ingredients that are hard to find -- or recipes that are simply too long and complicated. Root to Leaf, on the other hand, is wonderfully organized by season and offers immediate inspiration following a farmer's market visit.The recipes are easy to follow and at their core simple in order to showcase seasonal food. Pick up this book and read the spring section, go to your local farmer's market and be not afraid.Out of the many cookbooks I've purchased in the past year, this is unequivocally my new favorite.

Great book, arrived as described and quickly

Cooles Buch!Sehr gute Rezepte!

Crushingly boring. It's a huge tome but most of it is filler: for every ingredient, there's two pages of earnest waffle by the author, then two pages of artful photography, then a handful of recipes, most of which involve 2-3 ingredients and 2-3 steps. There's a lamb recipe that involves only salt, pepper, garlic and wine, and a cauliflower recipe that's salt, pepper, olive oil and mustard. Two whole pages are given over to a recipe for sauerkraut that is cabbage, salt and water.Given how important the author considers respect for ingredients to be, it's a shame he doesn't hold trees in the same regard: this book's a waste of paper.