Six Seasons

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 is the founder of Submarine Hospitality in Portland, Oregon. He owns and manages Ava Gene's, Cicoria, Medjool, and Tusk restaurants. In between running the restaurants, he is bringing new life to Berny Farm, a historic fifty-acre farm in Springdale, Oregon, with the goal of creating an agricultural complex that will host collaborations between farming, food, and design. His first book, Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables, also written with Martha Holmberg, won a James Beard Award in 2018. Follow him on Instagram at @jjmc. Martha Holmberg is a food writer who has authored or co-authored nine cookbooks. Modern Sauces was a James Beard Award finalist. Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables, written with chef Joshua McFadden, won the James Beard Award, and Grains for Every Season, also with McFadden, was a James Beard Award finalist. Holmberg was the editor in chief of Fine Cooking magazine for a decade, the food editor of The Oregonian newspaper in Portland, Oregon, and the founder of MIX magazine. She studied cooking at La Varenne in Paris, where she worked for several years as a private chef. Holmberg lives in Spokane, Washington. Follow her on Instagram @marthaholmberg.