"Farm to Fork"

Emeril is one of those pioneering TV chefs that makes me want to eat.  In his new cookbook he tackles the topical new issue of eating locally sustainable products.  In light of our recurring problems with food from China, this is a very good suggestion.  Check out our local Farmer's Market every Wednesday at OLB on Dundee. Follow this link to read more: Northbrook Farmer's Market

I can't wait to try some of the recipes in this book.  He startw with the herb garden and then goes through dairy, leafy greens, and what he calls "the three sisters": corn, beans and squash. Yum.  With over 300 pages, the recipes turn to some interesting ingredients like nightshades, winterfruits, and thistles! But Emeril is deeply rooted in  cooking with the ripest ingredients from every season.

Emeril dedicates the book to "all those fishermen who keep on keepin' on"; it kills me inside to think of how he is reacting to the oil spill in his "backyard".

"Impossible to Easy" by Robert Irvine

As you can tell with all these cookbook recommendations, I am somewhat of a "foodie".  I let my husband do all the cooking at home (he's so much better at it than I am), but we watch the Food Network, Bravo, and the Travel Channel cooking shows all the time.

In Robert Irvine's show, "Dinner Impossible", he takes on catering projects that should take months of planning and preparation, but he has only mere hours in which to complete them.  It makes for very entertaining programming, and his recipes are all AMAZING.

In 5 pages, the Table of Contents listing the recipes in his new book will have your mouth watering and your shopping list filling up.  Try any of these "111 Delicious Recipes to Help you Put Great Meals on the Table Every Day".

"Seven Dirty Words"

Having recently passed away, this title refers to an old comedy routine of Carlin's.  According to Wikipedia:

"The seven dirty words are seven English-language words that comedian George Carlin first listed in 1972 in his monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television". At the time, the words were considered highly inappropriate and unsuitable for broadcast on the public airwaves in the United States, whether radio or television. As such, they were avoided in scripted material, and bleep-censored in the rare cases in which they were used; broadcast standards differ in different parts of the world, then and now, although most of the words on Carlin's original list remain taboo on American broadcast television as of 2010. The list was not an official enumeration of forbidden words, but rather was compiled by Carlin. Nonetheless, a radio broadcast featuring these words led to a Supreme Court decision that helped establish the extent to which the federal government could regulate speech on broadcast television and radio in the United States."

I had the experience of seeing Carlin live with my husband in 2000 at Chicago's Navy Pier, thanks to the American Bookseller's Associatino and the BEA (Book Expo America).  People were getting up and leaving the audience because some of Carlin's jokes are so controversial and make people mad.  Sometimes, when life is the hardest, we still have to be able to laugh at ourselves.

"boom!" by Mark Haddon

From the author of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime", comes a book he wrote many years ago.  Re-published now, it is a funny story of two teenage boys who discover their teachers are ALIENS.  As the uncover more and more secrets, they are more and more at risk until they become so captured that their sister has to save them! How embarrassing! And how funny! I was drawn into the story right away and couldn't wait to see it through to the end.