Examines the biochemistry behind cooking and food preparation, rejecting such common notions as that searing meat seals in juices and that cutting lettuce causes it to brown faster
An epic story of the American wheat harvest, the politics of food, and the culture of the Great Plains For over one hundred years, the Mockett family has owned a seven-thousand-acre wheat farm in the panhandle of Nebraska, where Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s father was raised. Mockett, who grew up in bohemian Carmel, California, with her father and her Japanese mother, knew little about farming when she inherited this land. Her father had all but forsworn it. In American Harvest, Mockett accompanies a group of evangelical Christian wheat harvesters through the heartland at the invitation of Eric Wolgemuth, the conservative farmer who has cut her family’s fields for decades. As Mockett follows Wolgemuth’s crew on the trail of ripening wheat from Texas to Idaho, they contemplate what Wolgemuth refers to as “the divide,” inadvertently peeling back layers of the American story to expose its contradictions and unhealed wounds. She joins the crew in the fields, attends church, and struggles to adapt to the rhythms of rural life, all the while continually reminded of her own status as a person who signals “not white,” but who people she encounters can’t quite categorize. American Harvest is an extraordinary evocation of the land and a thoughtful exploration of ingrained beliefs, from evangelical skepticism of evolution to cosmopolitan assumptions about food production and farming. With exquisite lyricism and humanity, this astonishing book attempts to reconcile competing versions of our national story.
"Get out here, now, or I'm gonna kill you!" he hollered. Little girls are hardwired to hold their daddies in high esteem, so it comes as a shock the first time a daughter feels the back of her daddy's hand across her face . . . or watches him punch and kick her mother to within an inch of her life. How could this be? Her older sisters teach her how to survive, even when he comes for her in the night. A girl learns to become invisible, to look the other way, to say nothing when a curious stranger asks if she's okay. To lie. To expect nothing, not even from relatives. To cry without tears. To pray silently. When she is fourteen, and weary, a girl begins to wish she were dead. Cruel Harvest is the compelling story of how she lived instead. Endorsements: "A story that seizes the reader's attention . . . the reader can't look away." ?Publisher's Weekly “Fran Grubb's childhood odyssey is a shatteringly dark tale of despair. But that's not the end of her captivating life story. Each page of Cruel Harvest reveals a remarkable journey of rescue and redemption. Your heart will be moved as you witness Jesus' power to deliver, forgive, reconcile, rebuild, and love.” —Denalyn and Max Lucado “Cruel Harvest is an incredible story of survival and forgiveness. Fran’s ability to survive brokenness as a child and even into adulthood and then to overcome those experiences through faith and forgiveness is a true testament to the power of God’s love for each of us. Everyone can be inspired by her story.”—Sheila Walsh, author of God Loves Broken People and Women of Faith speaker “Against all odds, Fran survived her trip through the "valley of the shadow of death." I loved reading this story of deliverance. Thank you for the reminder that God can turn our mourning into dancing!”—Gracia Burnham, former hostage and author of In the Presence of My Enemies “Fran Grubb’s heartbreaking story is ultimately one of triumph against all odds. Cruel Harvest is well-written and riveting. It’s unimaginable that Fran could face such daily horrors and come out with such grace, wisdom, and generosity. You will be deeply moved!” — June Cotner, author of the bestselling Graces and 26 other books, www.junecotner.com “It is hard endorsing Cruel Harvest with just a few words. I want everyone to know how powerful her story is and how many lives it can help change, and is currently changing. Ever since reading Fran Grubb’s story I have used it to help numerous clients that are victims of childhood violence. Every woman has commented on her faith and how her book has given them hope! We are putting the book in our library for all the ladies to read.” —Vicki Mason, Primary Crisis Interventionist, Women's Crisis Services of LeFlore County, Poteau, Oklahoma “This was a wonderful book. We could feel the faith of the child throughout every page. We highly recommend Cruel Harvest.” —DeWayne and Rebecca Hicks, Founders of Courage to Change Ministries, Greenville, Arkansas “Cruel Harvest will touch your heart clear through to your soul! I guarantee that you won't be disappointed and you won't be able to put it down.” —Pastor Ray Witherington, Midnight Cry Ministries / Restoration Revival Center Church, Townville, South Carolina
This tale of an awkward Israeli widower and his misadventures with women is an “extraordinary novel . . . a masterpiece” (Los Angeles Times). After seven long years of illness, Molkho’s wife passes, leaving him in mourning, but also with an unexpected sense of freedom. No longer is he bound to being a caretaker for a woman too sick to even bear his touch. His future—and his desires—are his own. As the seasons of his life propel the hapless middle-aged accountant through a series of journeys and a string of infatuations—with an unwanted wife, an aggressive bureaucrat, a young girl, and a Russian émigré—Molkho begins to find the real element that was missing in his life was not romance, but his own will. An absurd, tragic, humorous, and hopeful meditation on love, marriage, and the quiet struggles of average Israeli lives, Five Seasons “reconfirms [A. B. Yehoshua’s] status as a shrewd analyst of domestic ordeals” (Publishers Weekly).
Laurel Pearson is ready for adventure. The sort of adventure that means finding your people and discovering yourself and — well, it turns out that her adventure mostly looks like a studio apartment in a new city, a job at a quirky little bookshop, and humiliating herself in front of the most gorgeous woman she’s ever seen. Typical. But Laurel can’t shake the feeling that there’s more going on. The bookshop sells silver amulets and dried herbs alongside their truly impressive poetry section, and that gorgeous woman crackles with secrets. And the bookclub? It might be a coven. There’s something coming. Something changing. And Laurel would swear that Rhea Barnes — the gruff, hot gardener with the intriguing scars — is the key to understanding all of it. Can Laurel convince Rhea to take a chance on her and find out what’s pulling them together? Under the Harvest Moon is a complete F/F romance with grumpy gardeners, curious bookshop clerks, magic, and kisses in the moonlight!
The poems in Remember to Harvest are reminders to harvest as much life out of our years as we can. To keep searching for those raw moments that make us feel. To give and receive love. To seek balance. To stay curious. To empower. To harvest your truth.* For every book sold, a tree will be planted through the organization, Trees for the Future.
A collection of newspaper articles about Dust Bowl migrants in California’s Central Valley by the author of The Grapes of Wrath, accompanied by photos. Three years before his triumphant novel The Grapes of Wrath—a fictional portrayal of a Depression-era family fleeing Oklahoma during a disastrous period of drought and dust storms—John Steinbeck wrote seven articles for the San Francisco News about these history-making events and the hundreds of thousands who made their way west to work as farm laborers. With the inquisitiveness of an investigative reporter and the emotional power of a novelist in his prime, Steinbeck toured the squatters’ camps and Hoovervilles of rural California. The Harvest Gypsies gives us an eyewitness account of the horrendous Dust Bowl migration, and provides the factual foundation for Steinbeck’s masterpiece. Included are twenty-two photographs by Dorothea Lange and others, many of which accompanied Steinbeck’s original articles. '”Steinbeck’s potent blend of empathy and moral outrage was perfectly matched by the photographs of Dorothea Lange, who had caught the whole saga with her camera—the tents, the jalopies, the bindlestiffs, the pathos and courage of uprooted mothers and children.”—San Francisco Review of Books “Steinbeck’s journalism shares the enduring quality of his famous novel…Certain to engage students of both American literature and labor history.”—Publishers Weekly