Bill Buford's Heat meets Phoebe Damrosch's Service Included in this unique blend of personal narrative, food miscellany, and history In March of 2009, Erin Byers Murray ditched her pampered city girl lifestyle and convinced the rowdy and mostly male crew at Island Creek Oysters in Duxbury, Massachusetts, to let a completely unprepared, aquaculture-illiterate food and lifestyle writer work for them for a year to learn the business of oysters. The result is Shucked—part love letter, part memoir and part documentary about the world's most beloved bivalves. Providing an in-depth look at the work that goes into getting oysters from farm to table, Shucked shows Erin's fullcircle journey through the modern day oyster farming process and tells a dynamic story about the people who grow our food, and the cutting-edge community of weathered New England oyster farmers who are defying convention and looking ahead. The narrative also interweaves Erin's personal story—the tale of how a technology-obsessed workaholic learns to slow life down a little bit and starts to enjoy getting her hands dirty (and cold). This is a book for oyster lovers everywhere, but also a great read for locavores and foodies in general.

From a farmgirl to your table—Easy-to-make, delicious, local, New England recipes, plus tips on getting the best produce and products for your kitchen. New England Farmgirl invites readers to learn about growing a garden, buying local, and choosing organic foods. The ultimate delight: it is filled with family heritage recipes—from grandfather’s fudge to great-grandmother’s molasses cookies, along with recipes created by the author to use the great products harvested in New England. Maple Peach Barbecue Sauce, Strawberry-Raspberry Popsicles, Pecan Pie, Farmhouse Pumpkin Pound Cake and so many more delightful recipes bring New England farm products to your table. New England is known for culinary delights, such as blueberries, cranberries and maple syrup. Reading this will be like driving through rural Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. Step back in time and remember the joys of childhood with wonderful farm stands, orchards, and wineries throughout New England. “The recipes in New England Farmgirl are original and creative. Most importantly, they are easy to make. Plus, the tantalizing photographs will completely make your mouth water.”—The Washington Book Review “Robinson’s culinary ode to New England has something delicious for everyone.”—Eleanor Duke, Edible Rhody

Daniel Vickers examines the shifting labor strategies used by colonists as New England evolved from a string of frontier settlements to a mature society on the brink of industrialization. Lacking a means to purchase slaves or hire help, seventeenth-century settlers adapted the labor systems of Europe to cope with the shortages of capital and workers they encountered on the edge of the wilderness. As their world developed, changes in labor arrangements paved the way for the economic transformations of the nineteenth century. By reconstructing the work experiences of thousands of farmers and fishermen in eastern Massachusetts, Vickers identifies who worked for whom and under what terms. Seventeenth-century farmers, for example, maintained patriarchal control over their sons largely to assure themselves of a labor force. The first generation of fish merchants relied on a system of clientage that bound poor fishermen to deliver their hauls in exchange for goods. Toward the end of the colonial period, land scarcity forced farmers and fishermen to search for ways to support themselves through wage employment and home manufacture. Out of these adjustments, says Vickers, emerged a labor market sufficient for industrialization.

New Hampshire ranks third nationally in the percentage of principal farm operators who are women, and these women are transforming what it means both to be a farmer and to run a successful farm. Through informative prose and striking photographs, Helen Brody and Leslie Tuttle show how women in the Granite State are revitalizing farming by creating value-added products and developing new and vital markets for their locally grown food. Such innovations keep farms profitable and relevant, even as they work to protect the open land we all value. Expanding their roles to include accountant, sales expert, and educator, the state's women farmers occupy the forefront of national farm-to-community outreach, increasing public awareness of healthy foods and attracting travelers to New Hampshire's bounty. New Hampshire Women Farmers makes an excellent gift for anyone interested in the new directions that will sustain family farms in the twenty-first century.

The Resilient Farm and Homestead is a manual for developing durable, beautiful, and highly functional human habitat systems fit to handle an age of rapid transition. Ben Falk is a land designer and site developer whose permaculture-research farm has drawn national attention. The site is a terraced paradise on a hillside in Vermont that would otherwise be overlooked by conventional farmers as unworthy farmland. Falk's wide array of fruit trees, rice paddies (relatively unheard of in the Northeast), ducks, nuts, and earth-inspired buildings is a hopeful image for the future of regenerative agriculture and modern homesteading. The book covers nearly every strategy Falk and his team have been testing at the Whole Systems Research Farm over the past decade, as well as experiments from other sites Falk has designed through his off-farm consulting business. The book includes detailed information on earthworks; gravity-fed water systems; species composition; the site-design process; site management; fuelwood hedge production and processing; human health and nutrient-dense production strategies; rapid topsoil formation and remineralization; agroforestry/silvopasture/grazing; ecosystem services, especially regarding flood mitigation; fertility management; human labor and social-systems aspects; tools/equipment/appropriate technology; and much more, complete with gorgeous photography and detailed design drawings. The Resilient Farm and Homestead is more than just a book of tricks and techniques for regenerative site development, but offers actual working results in living within complex farm-ecosystems based on research from the "great thinkers" in permaculture, and presents a viable home-scale model for an intentional food-producing ecosystem in cold climates, and beyond. Inspiring to would-be homesteaders everywhere, but especially for those who find themselves with "unlikely" farming land, Falk is an inspiration in what can be done by imitating natural systems, and making the most of what we have by re-imagining what's possible. A gorgeous case study for the homestead of the future.

Harwood's struggle to reach full manhood and assume his position as head of the family, his misgivings about challenging - much less displacing - his father, the changes American life brought to this traditional rite of passage, Hiram's relationships with wife and children, seasonal events, and all the day-to-day experiences of this finally tragic figure make for a fascinating story and provide a highly unusual window into antebellum American life.".

A penetrating look at the condition of family farming--yesterday, today, and tomorrow.