Governor Bill Hoeksma of Michigan is a simple, gun-loving son of a billionaire who idolises George W. Bush. When a mysterious illness afflicts members of his inner circle, his conspiring advisors point to a rumoured viral weapons attack – via monkeypox-carrying prairie dogs – launched by the Wisconsin government. Governor Bill decides the Michigan militia should lead the military response, chaos ensues, and he falls unwittingly into a scheme of his powerful father’s making. That scheme begins with cheese research and a Hollywood movie star. How it will end all depends on two unlikely heroes: an aging lesbian state senator, and a high-school teacher born and raised in the Michigan militia. When the conspiracy runs out of road, and guns are drawn in a showdown outside a Cracker Barrel, will anyone emerge victorious from the Great American Cheese War? What readers are saying about The Great American Cheese War: "A rollicking riot of insanity and I mean that in the most wonderful sense! I laughed my way through this story." "Highly recommended!! This book was a lot of fun, I laughed out loud, and it's a clever satire book. It's well written, engrossing and entertaining." "Enjoy your summer, read this book!" "Satire at its finest. The whole book had me rolling on floor laughing!"

"The Great American Hot Dog Book" reveals the inside story of how the hot dog became one of America's favorite food icons. This collection is also loaded with frank recipes from across the nation as well as recipes for out-of-this-world fries, sauces, sides, and more.

The highly readable story of Gordon Edgar's unlikely career as a cheesemonger at San Francisco's worker-owned Rainbow Grocery Cooperative.

From his woodland bunker in Michigan, Bo 'Big Bruddah' Watts has assembled a scratch army of gun-toting militiamen, and he's ready to use it. Rumours are circulating that the liberal, female President of the USA is going to fight climate change by banning beef, snatching the great American hamburger from the mouths of patriots. Big Bruddah missed the last militia uprising. That one, sparked by a conspiracy theory about a deadly virus and stolen cheese recipes, ended in failure when his now ex-wife, Miky Spike, stopped the potentially bloody conflict at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Wisconsin. He is determined to stop the president, with the help of eccentric octogenarian Wilbur Tuttle, who runs Silver Eagle Security, the private military enterprise owned by the hapless former governor of Michigan, Bill Hoeksma. The plan is to launch a coup in Tampa, Florida by kidnapping the President's daughter and then installing Hoeksma as a puppet President. With the support of Silver Eagle's best men, Big Bruddah and Tuttle hope to ignite the long-awaited insurrection militia members call the "boogaloo." What could possibly go wrong? What readers are saying about The Great American Cheese War: "A rollicking riot of insanity and I mean that in the most wonderful sense! I laughed my way through this story." "Highly recommended!! This book was a lot of fun, I laughed out loud, and it's a clever satire book. It's well written, engrossing and entertaining." "Enjoy your summer, read this book!" "Satire at its finest. The whole book had me rolling on floor laughing!"

"Cheddar is the world's most ubiquitous and beloved cheese. More than that, cheddar holds a key to understanding our food politics and even our cultural identity. In 'Cheddar', Gordon Edgar (Cheesemonger) traces the unexplored history of cheddar, with both wry humor and an eye toward its future. Cheddar has something to tell us about this country: from the way people rally to certain types of cheddar but not others, to the gradual transformation of a once artisan cheese into big commodity blocks (and back again) and the effect that has had on rural communities. One of the first cheeses to be industrialized, cheddar's progression from farmstead wheels to machine-extruded singles mirrors that of our entire food system. The resurgence of traditional cheesemaking over the last few decades, in turn, speaks to ways that we're redefining how food is produced. Edgar also answers some key questions about cheddar. Is it the most popular cheese in the land? Did England invent it and America cheapen it? Is today's 40-pound block a precursor to Velveeta? You'll find these answers and more in 'Cheddar', a book as thought-provoking as it is entertaining and that reveals what a familiar food has to tell us about ourselves and our culture"--Page 4 of cover.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • Entertainment Weekly • Kirkus Reviews • The Christian Science Monitor In the picturesque village of Guzmán, Spain, in a cave dug into a hillside on the edge of town, an ancient door leads to a cramped limestone chamber known as “the telling room.” Containing nothing but a wooden table and two benches, this is where villagers have gathered for centuries to share their stories and secrets—usually accompanied by copious amounts of wine. It was here, in the summer of 2000, that Michael Paterniti found himself listening to a larger-than-life Spanish cheesemaker named Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras as he spun an odd and compelling tale about a piece of cheese. An unusual piece of cheese. Made from an old family recipe, Ambrosio’s cheese was reputed to be among the finest in the world, and was said to hold mystical qualities. Eating it, some claimed, conjured long-lost memories. But then, Ambrosio said, things had gone horribly wrong. . . . By the time the two men exited the telling room that evening, Paterniti was hooked. Soon he was fully embroiled in village life, relocating his young family to Guzmán in order to chase the truth about this cheese and explore the fairy tale–like place where the villagers conversed with farm animals, lived by an ancient Castilian code of honor, and made their wine and food by hand, from the grapes growing on a nearby hill and the flocks of sheep floating over the Meseta. What Paterniti ultimately discovers there in the highlands of Castile is nothing like the idyllic slow-food fable he first imagined. Instead, he’s sucked into the heart of an unfolding mystery, a blood feud that includes accusations of betrayal and theft, death threats, and a murder plot. As the village begins to spill its long-held secrets, Paterniti finds himself implicated in the very story he is writing. Equal parts mystery and memoir, travelogue and history, The Telling Room is an astonishing work of literary nonfiction by one of our most accomplished storytellers. A moving exploration of happiness, friendship, and betrayal, The Telling Room introduces us to Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras, an unforgettable real-life literary hero, while also holding a mirror up to the world, fully alive to the power of stories that define and sustain us. Praise for The Telling Room “Captivating . . . Paterniti’s writing sings, whether he’s talking about how food activates memory, or the joys of watching his children grow.”—NPR

A prominent food scientist defends the use of raw milk in traditional artisan cheesemaking. Raw milk cheese--cheese made from unpasteurized milk--is an expansive category that includes some of Europe's most beloved traditional styles: Parmigiano Reggiano, Gruyère, and Comté, to name a few. In the United States, raw milk cheese forms the backbone of the resurgent artisan cheese industry, as consumers demand local, traditionally produced, and high-quality foods. Internationally award-winning artisan cheeses like Bayley Hazen Blue (Jasper Hill, VT) would have been unimaginable just forty years ago when American cheese meant Kraft Singles. Unfortunately the artisan cheese industry faces an existential regulatory threat. Over the past thirty years the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has edged toward an outright ban on raw milk cheeses. Their assault on traditional cheesemaking goes beyond a debate about raw milk safety; the FDA has also attempted to ban the use of wooden boards, the use of ash in cheese ripening, and has set stringent microbiological criteria that many artisan cheeses cannot meet. The David versus Goliath existence of small producers fighting crushing regulations is true in parts of Europe as well, where beloved creameries are going belly-up or being bought out because they can't comply with EU health ordinances. Centuries-old cheese styles like Fourme d'Ambert and Cantal are nearing extinction, leading Prince Charles to decry the "bacteriological correctness" of European regulators. The dirty secret is that Listeria and other bacterial outbreaks occur in pasteurized cheeses more often than in raw milk cheeses, and traditional processes like ash-ripening have been proven safe. In Ending the War on Artisan Cheese, Dr. Catherine Donnelly forcefully defends traditional cheesemaking, while exposing government actions in the United States and abroad designed to take away food choice under the false guise of food safety. This book is fundamentally about where and how our food is produced, the values we place on methods of food production, and how the roles of tradition, heritage, and quality often conflict with advertising, politics, and profits in influencing our food choices.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK Once in a great while a writer comes along who can truly capture the drama and passion of the life of a family. David James Duncan, author of the novel The River Why and the collection River Teeth, is just such a writer. And in The Brothers K he tells a story both striking and in its originality and poignant in its universality. This touching, uplifting novel spans decades of loyalty, anger, regret, and love in the lives of the Chance family. A father whose dreams of glory on a baseball field are shattered by a mill accident. A mother who clings obsessively to religion as a ward against the darkest hour of her past. Four brothers who come of age during the seismic upheavals of the sixties and who each choose their own way to deal with what the world has become. By turns uproariously funny and deeply moving, and beautifully written throughout, The Brothers K is one of the finest chronicles of our lives in many years. Praise for The Brothers K “The pages of The Brothers K sparkle.”—The New York Times Book Review “Duncan is a wonderfully engaging writer.”—Los Angeles Times “This ambitious book succeeds on almost every level and every page.”—USA Today “Duncan’s prose is a blend of lyrical rhapsody, sassy hyperbole and all-American vernacular.”—San Francisco Chronicle “The Brothers K affords the . . . deep pleasures of novels that exhaustively create, and alter, complex worlds. . . . One always senses an enthusiastic and abundantly talented and versatile writer at work.”—The Washington Post Book World “Duncan . . . tells the larger story of an entire popular culture struggling to redefine itself—something he does with the comic excitement and depth of feeling one expects from Tom Robbins.”—Chicago Tribune

We have a growing hunger to know where our food comes from. In our increasingly corporate world, we are looking to get back in touch with our roots to the land. American Artisanal feeds this hunger as no book has before. The book celebrates eighteen of America’s leading food artisans–from Wood Prairie Farms potatoes in Maine to L. L. Lanier Honey in Florida, from Reed’s Ginger Brew in California to Earthy Delights mushrooms in Michigan. These are folks who are returning to the basics of sustainable, small-scale, or just plain high quality production. Food is a second career for many of these producers, who decided to drop out of the office rat race and pursue their real passion, literally in the field. In their inspirational stories we also can see the emergence of a true national cuisine. Also, woven throughout each chapter is the engaging history behind our foods–their natural origins and long journeys to cultivation. Recipes and ordering information are provided so you can enjoy these culinary delights at home.