Joshua McFadden

Six seasons - each with its own character. The first vegetables of spring are all about tenderness and new growth. We've been eating sturdy winter fare for so long that slender, tender, and delicate is exactly what we need ...a ripe juicy tomato would feel too much, too soon. Early summer steps up that game a bit - the flavours aren't yet intense, but the fresh and green notes are deeper and all is livelier. Midsummer starts the flavour riot - more variety, more colours and textures. Late summer is the lush period - the richest colours, most vibrant flavours, and sensuality. Then back to fall and winter, when life in the fields slows down. In each of the six seasons, McFadden celebrates vegetables as only a chef with the soul and experience of a farmer can. Vegetables appear not only in their prime seasons but also in multiple seasons, because how you handle, say, a young spring carrot bears no relationship to what you do to storage carrots in winter.McFadden's intuitive feel for the way seasons affect flavour translates into recipes that coax out the best of each ingredient. The 225 fresh, modern, and entirely approachable recipes range from the raw to the cooked to the preserved. While 75 percent of the recipes are vegetarian, there are plenty in which meat, seafood, and poultry play a supporting role. All have that great vibrancy made possible by McFadden's keen sense with seasoning, and his ability to get to deep and rich without the use of unnecessary fats. These are but a few of the many lessons taught in this beautifully photographed book.

Joshua McFadden's first book, the James Beard Award-winning and perennially bestselling Six Seasons, transformed the way we cook with vegetables. Now he's back with a new book that applies his maximalist approach to flavor and texture to cooking with grains. These knock-your-socks-off recipes include salads, soups, pastas, pizzas, grain bowls, breads-and even desserts. McFadden works as intuitively, as surprisingly, as deliciously with whole grains as he does with vegetables. Grains for Every Season will change the way we cook with barley, brown rice, buckwheat, corn, millet, oats, quinoa, rye, wheat (bulgur, farro, freekeh, spelt, wheat berries, and whole wheat flour), and wild rice. The book's 200 recipes are organized into chapters by grain type, unlocking information on where each one comes from, how to prepare it, and why the author-the multi-award-winning chef/owner of Ava Gene's in Portland-can't live without it. McFadden uses grains both whole and milled into flour. The many gluten-free recipes are clearly designated. McFadden reveals how each grain can be used in both savory and sweet recipes, from Meat Loaf with Barley and Mushrooms to Peanut Butter-Barley Cookies; from Buckwheat, Lime and Herb Salad to Buckwheat Cream Scones. He folds quinoa into tempura batter to give veggies extra pop and takes advantage of the nutty flavor of spelt flour for Cast-Iron Skillet Spelt Cinnamon Rolls. Four special foldout sections highlight seasonal variations on grain bowls, stir-fries, pizzas, pilafs, and more, to show how flexible and satisfying cooking with grains can be.