The potager, or French vegetable garden, represents the very best of French cuisine: fresh, flavorful, and easily accessible for home cooks everywhere. In Vegetable Harvest, Patricia Wells presents a collection of recipes inspired by the garden she tends at her home in Provence.

No one has done more than Patricia to bring the art and techniques of French cooking into American kitchens. Now, in her tenth cookbook, she covers every kind of produce favored by French cooks from north to south. In addition, there are charming profiles of French farmers, home gardeners, and cooks, with sixty-five stunning color photographs.

From arugula to zucchini, Patricia offers up a wealth of dishes that incorporate vegetables, herbs, nuts, legumes, and fruits fresh from the garden. And her recipes aren't limited to summer's bounty--there are plenty for fall squash and winter potatoes, too.

The recipes in Vegetable Harvest include everything from appetizers, soups, and salads, to meats, poultry, and pasta. There are classics like Spicy Butternut Squash Soup, Roast Leg of Lamb with Honey and Mint Crust, and Pea and Mint Risotto, as well as innovative new dishes that are sure to become time-honored favorites, such as Potato-Chive Waffles with Smoked Salmon, Capers, and Cr me Fra che, Tomato and Strawberry Gazpacho, and Zucchini Blossoms Stuffed with Goat Cheese and Basil. To finish your meal with a flourish, there are decadent, fruity desserts like Pistachio-Cherry Cake with Cherry Sorbet, Rhubarb-Berry Compote in Grenadine, and Crunchy Almond-Pear Cake. In addition, there is a chapter on pantry staples that includes Patricia's recipes for Zesty Lemon Salt, Truffle Butter, and Fresh Cilantro Sauce.

And while Patricia's wonderful dishes sound sinful, they are in fact quite healthful, low in fat and calories; nutritional information is given for each recipe.

With Vegetable Harvest, you'll be eating the best nature has to offer--fresh, flavorful produce--all year round.

Beautifully designed and exquisitely photographed, this unique series showcases sensational recipes that exhibit the wonderful versatility of fruits and vegetables, fresh from the garden or greengrocer's basket.

Features over 150 recipes for soups, appetizers, salads, entrees, and side dishes. This book also contains a chapter on sauces and relishes made from vegetables.

When the farmers' markets start in earnest in April and May, Minnesotans' pent-up desire for fresh, flavorful produce is answered immediately by rhubarb, spring onions, and tender lettuces. Within just a few weeks, the bounty has expanded exponentially and, before too long, those connected to a crop share or whose market basket is perhaps a bit too accommodating may be wondering: Just what should I do with fennel? And how can I possibly consume all of this spinach?

Tricia Cornell comes to the rescue in Eat More Vegetables, 135 recipes arranged seasonally to correspond with our northern plenty, from a refreshing cold beet soup in the heat of summer to a healthy and comforting butternut squash chili for cold winter nights; from zucchini fritters any kid will love to an adults-only melon-vodka slushie. But this book brings value far beyond creative recipes. Introductions to the many vegetables, fruits, and herbs stacked on farmers' tables and in the grocery store help home cooks see delicious possibilities in kale, cabbage, or tomatoes, while tips for preparation and storage encourage us to make the most of our growing season and extend the goods through fall and into winter, until the markets open up once again.

Tricia Cornell is a writer for The Heavy Table online food magazine and for Twin Cities Business, a former editor for Minnesota Parent and Minnesota Good Age, and a veteran CSA subscriber to Hog's Back Farm of Arkansaw, Wisconsin.

Contrary to popular belief, a pepper does not need to make your eyes water or start a fire in your mouth to qualify as a chile. Chile is simply the common name for the fruit of the capsicum plant. Chiles come in a wide variety of colors, shapes and flavors.

This comprehensive book (which serves as both a reference and a cookbook) from bestselling author and expert researcher Judith Finlayson takes you through the many varieties of chiles and provides absorbing information on everything from the historical and geographic origins of chiles, information on The Scoville Scale (it measures the hotness of a chile and was invented by Wilbur Scoville), health benefits and finally, 250 delicious and inventive recipes.

From fiery Tex-Mex inspired meals to savory and sweet Thai, this collection of recipes are sure to make you a lover of all things chile

Here's just a tempting sample of the dishes that await you:

• Appetizers like Cheese Arepas, Fresh Cucumber Kimchi, Guacamole, Indian-Style Roti are the perfect jumping off point for any dinner and sumptuous soups like Mulligatawny, Thai Coconut Chicken and Pepper Black Bean Soup bring warmth and comfort on a cold winter's day.

Chiles add their wonderful and distinctive flavor to fish and seafood and this is highlighted beautifully in Jamaican-Style Fish Cakes, Paella, Shrimp Creole, Bahia-Style Chowder. And Judith's beef and veal recipes marry beautifully with chiles -- resulting in delectable Mexican Meatballs, Chinese Beef with Orange, Beef Fajitas and Ropa Vieja.

There are also recipes for sides, fresh salsas, sambals and chutneys, not to mention sauces, marinades, dressings and condiments.

You're sure to enjoy the wealth of information and recipe in this book that's dedicated to the delights of chiles.

The ubiquitous apple: a mainstay of fruit bowls and bag lunches, and in Minnesota, a point of pride. Cultivators in the apple breeding program at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and the University of Minnesota have been dreaming up new varieties since the 1930s, most recently adding to their list of winter-hardy fruits the SweeTango and the Zestar. Snappy and sweet eaten out of hand, tender and flavorful when roasted or baked, apples bring plenty to the table. There's no better guide to this apple abundance than Joan Donatelle, whose fondness for the fruit goes beyond the standard slices-and-brie or apple crisp. Astonishing Apples opens with imaginative dishes like Smoked Trout Tartlettes and Apple Bruschetta, followed by Cheddar Apple Cornbread and Apple Cabbage Slaw. Apples find their way to the center of the plate in Savory Apple Foccacia and Ginger Curry Apple Turkey Bake. Tempt your sweet tooth with Apple Almond Biscotti and Apple Panna Cotta, and explore modern twists on the usual suspects, from apple butter to applesauce to fresh cider. With this cookbook in your arsenal, eating "an apple a day" has never been easier--or more delicious.

One intrepid cook's exploration of her urban terrain

In this groundbreaking collection of nearly 500 wild food recipes, celebrated New York City forager, cook, kitchen gardener, and writer Marie Viljoen incorporates wild ingredients into everyday and special occasion fare. Motivated by a hunger for new flavors and working with thirty-six versatile wild plants--some increasingly found in farmers markets--she offers deliciously compelling recipes for everything from cocktails and snacks to appetizers, entr es, and desserts, as well as bakes, breads, preserves, sauces, syrups, ferments, spices, and salts.

From underexplored native flavors like bayberry and spicebush to accessible ecological threats like Japanese knotweed and mugwort, Viljoen presents hundreds of recipes unprecedented in scope. They range from simple quickweed griddle cakes with American burnweed butter to sophisticated dishes like a souffl ed tomato roulade stuffed with garlic mustard, or scallops seared with sweet white clover, cattail pollen, and sweetfern butter. Viljoen makes unfamiliar ingredients familiar by treating each to a thorough culinary examination, allowing readers to grasp every plant's character and inflection.

Forage, Harvest, Feast--featuring hundreds of color photographs as well as cultivation tips for plants easily grown at home--is destined to become a standard reference for any cook wanting to transform wildcrafted ingredients into exceptional dishes, spices, and drinks.

Eating wild food, Viljoen reminds us, is a radical act of remembering and honoring our shared heritage. Led by a quest for exceptional flavor and ecologically sound harvesting, she tames the feral kitchen, making it recognizable and welcoming to regular cooks.