Organic Marin: Recipes From Land To Table Now Available

Rooted in the fertile fields of Marin County, CA, the cradle of the organic food movement, is a belief that food fosters community. With beautiful photography and delicious recipes using seasonal ingredients, Organic Marin: Recipes from Land to Table (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $29.99, August 2008) tells the story of that connection between farmer and family, between land and table, between food and community. Organic Marin, by Tim Porter and Farina Wong Kingsley, is now available for purchase at andrewsmcmeel.com.

Learn more about the history and the future of the nation’s organic-farming standard bearer in Organic Marin. Also inside, 16 of America’s most esteemed organic farmers share their stories; 50 mouthwatering recipes, contributed by the Bay Area’s most popular organic restaurants, are organized by season and include Heirloom Tomato Flat Bread, Grilled Pork Tenderloin and Nectarines with Bacon Vinaigrette, and Apple-Brandy Crisp; and co-author Tim Porter shares his breathtaking photos of finished dishes and Marin’s incomparable scenery.

Dig into Organic Marin, and soon you’ll feel the warmth of rich black soil between your fingers, the taste of tender beef and juicy strawberries on your tongue. And like Marin’s growers, you’ll celebrate the belief that feeding good food to a community will make the world a better place.

About the authors

Tim Porter is a photographer and a writer with an extensive background in newspaper and magazine journalism, with work appearing in The New York Times, San Francisco Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the American Journalism Review. Tim, an editor-at-large for Marin Magazine, is a former assistant managing editor for the San Francisco Examiner and the co-author of News, Improved: How America’s Newspapers Are Learning to Change. He lives in Corte Madera, CA, and Oaxaca, Mexico. timporter.com

Farina Wong Kingsley is a culinary instructor at Tante Marie’s Cooking School in San Francisco and a consulting chef for San Francisco’s Center for Culinary Development. She has written and contributed to numerous cookbooks, including The Essentials of Asian Cooking, The Aqua Restaurant Cookbook, and Food Made Fast: Asian. She lives in Tiburon, CA.

Slurp: Drinks and Light Fare, All Day, All Night Featured in Magazines

Recipes and images from Slurp: Drinks and Light Fare, All Day, All Night are featured in a two-page spread in the fall/winter issue of The Knot magazine.

In addition, the July/August issue of Cookbook Digest includes a recipe from Slurp.

Whether your tastes run to carrot and ginger juice, Captain Nemos, or blueberry and mint coolers, Slurp: Drinks and Light Fare, All Day, All Night (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $16.99) offers the best quenchers around and delicious dishes to eat with them.

This splashy book by Nina Dreyer Hensley, Jim Hensley, and Paul Løwe includes more than 100 recipes for drinks and food presented by the time of day they would best be served. Alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks are included, along with recipes for tasty appetizer pairings and tips on entertaining. And, last but not least, hangover remedies provide help for the day after.

Things Cooks Love: Implements. Ingredients. Recipes. Featured in The Oregonian

Tuesday, July 08, 2008
DANIELLE CENTONI
The Oregonian Staff

If it's the little things that make life worth living, then saucy, cheesy casseroles should be at the top of the list. There's something about the merging of melted cheese, thick sauce and belly-filling starch that feeds the soul.

Although lasagna and other baked pastas tend to hog all the attention, this delicious Mexican casserole will likely end up making frequent appearances in your casserole lineup. Made with a tomato sauce spiked with canned chipotle chiles en adobo, and layered with roasted poblano peppers, fried strips of corn tortillas and two kinds of Mexican cheese, it has all the ooey-gooey goodness of a good lasagna, but with vibrant flavors that bring a welcome change of pace.

The recipe comes from "Things Cooks Love" (Andrews McMeel, $35, 352 pages), a new cookbook by veteran author Marie Simmons and Sur La Table, the chain of cookware shops. Packed with recipes designed to use specific cookware and gadgets, you might think the book is just a smart marketing ploy by a savvy company, but a trip through the pages assured us it's a great book in its own right. The enticing recipes travel the globe and are organized by cuisine and equipment. But even if you don't have, say, a Moroccan tagine pot, Simmons gives you plenty of alternatives.

In this case, we didn't have a tortilla press, or the time, to make tortillas. And if we did, we'd probably eat them all right away and wouldn't have any day-old leftovers for this recipe. But no worries, we used store-bought corn tortillas and it still turned out great.

Pearls Before Swine Creator Interviewed By Ingram Library Services Readers Advisory

Pearls Before Swine Creator Stephan Pastis was recently interviewed by the Ingram Library Services Readers Advisory web site.

April 2008--Volume VI, Issue 4

Genre Chicks

I had the hardest time trying to find a conference room in which to interview Stephan--it's what I get for scheduling an interview on Monday morning. I finally found an empty closet with a phone jack in which to make my call. And I'm very glad I did; Stephan is just as cool as you'd imagine him to be. We talked about everything from Greek mafia hits to Garrison Keillor to Bucky Katt to Stanley Kubrick, and we decided exactly who Spartacus was.

And then I remembered to press record.

Warning: A few crocodiles were harmed during the recording of this interview. But it's okay, because we un-died them afterwards.

Pearls Before Swine Treasuries:
The Crass Menagerie
Lions & Tigers & Crocs, Oh My!
Sergeant Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club

Alethea Kontis: What's the first thing that pops up when you press "play" on your iPod?

Stephan Pastis: It's the Bob Dylan album Time Out of Mind. But if you go by which artist is the most played, it's probably U2.

AK: You've mentioned a passion for Hemingway in other interviews you've done--what are some of your other favorite contemporary authors?

SP: Historians like Robert Caro, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David McCullough…when I do find an author, I tend to pick up absolutely everything he or she has written and immerse myself in the author’s work. I just did that with Stanley Kubrick, actually--I watched something like 13 Stanley Kubrick films back to back.

This year, my goals are to read up on Roman history, Mayan history, Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, and I want to cover architecture. I know nothing about architecture.

AK: Is there a reason you don't have characters named "Dog" and "Cat," or did you make some sort of secret pact with Darby Conley?

SP: Dogs and cats are two animals that have been historically too covered on the comics page, so I have to sort of watch that. That said, I do have a new character who is a dog on a leash that I'm really warming up to, and in the next few months there will be a cat who is a very interesting character.

AK: When you sit down to write your strips, do you find that art imitates life, or that life imitates art?

SP: I do the strip in such a way that it's not a one-to-one relationship. I don't see something and it goes into the strip; I sort of let the subconscious run free and what comes out comes out. You know that zone you get in when you're in the car on a six-hour drive, and suddenly you wonder where the last four hours went? That's the zone I'm usually in when I'm writing. I make up these scenarios and put them down. Afterwards, things tend to happen in real life that seem to reflect that. And since I write the strip about eight months in advance, by the time it runs everybody thinks that I wrote it after the event…when it's usually the other way around.

AK: Do you still have the cartoons you drew as a kid?

SP: I do. For some reason, most of those cartoons were based on television commercials. There's one in particular I remember about the Fruit of the Loom dying in the hamper.

AK: Does picture book star Danny Donkey have a publisher yet?

SP: That would be great, wouldn't it? People have asked me about that one, and if there would be an Angry Bob book. They couldn't be by me, of course--they would have to be by Rat. Maybe I'll compile "Rat's Complete Writings" someday.

AK: How many times has Crocodile Bob died?

SP: Well, Angry Bob has died 19 times. I know that because there are nineteen strips--they are all numbered. I call them "Author One" and "Author Two.” I think the last one is "Author Nineteen." The Crocs, oh boy, that's a harder question. I don't track them and I should. There have probably been about 50 to 60 croc deaths. They've died an awful lot. I know Larry died a few times, too. I just conveniently keep going. I don't even bother to un-die them. I make no pretense about having any sort of continuity in my strip.

AK: Now, Larry, he's the one with the wife, right?

SP: There's definitely a family--I have to ask my son this sometimes because I forget their names--but I think his wife's name is Patty and his son's name is Junior. Where they live I don't really know…somehow they're next door to Zebra, and the Fraternity of Crocs is next to Zebra and I don't think they're in the same house. The Lions are on the other side of Zebra, and now he has Hyenas, so the whole thing's all mixed up.

AK: Zebra really does live in a bad neighborhood, doesn't he? Croc Speak is the best, though…the favorite phrase going around here is: "You shut mouf, woomun!"

SP: (laughs) That's a popular line. I used to hear "Hullo, zeeba neighba," but now I hear "You shut mouf," or "Peese shut mouf." I like when they say "Peese."

AK: Since I'm recording this, could *you* please say something in Crocodile Speak?

SP: See, I don't talk like other people hear it. When I do it, I always ruin it for other people. I say, "Hullo, zeeba neighba. Leesen…" and hear something like Russian, but I know that's not how other people hear it and I end up spoiling it for everybody.

AK: You've never accidentally said, "You shut mouf, woomun!" to your wife, have you?

SP: Oh, wow. Wouldn't that be something? I don't think she would be my wife anymore. I do talk Croc to my kids…it's probably pretty annoying for them. I don't think they listen to me.

AK: Is there a reason you chose crocodiles over alligators? Do they live in the Southern Hemisphere?

SP: That's a good question. Why didn't I make them alligators? I know crocodiles are bigger, so they're theoretically more menacing…which makes these guys all the more lame.

"Croc" is just a good sound. A lot of it is based on sound. It's all rhythm. If you've ever watched a stand-up comic--especially the old guys who were really good at it--if they were going along and it came close to the punch line and they said the wrong word and then restated it, the joke was ruined. If it's just a joke, the word doesn't matter, but it has the same effect as a pianist hitting the wrong note. You cannot recapture the song. Once you have people in your rhythm, they will find stuff funny even if it isn't necessarily so.

Sometimes people will ask me to put their name in the strip, but the real reason I don't is because usually rhythmically it doesn't fit. "Bob" is such a great word. It's short, it's funny, it's a stupid verb, it's a whole bunch of things. Anything that's palindromic or repeated syllables: Fifi, Gigi…those are funny. I don't know why.

AK: Do you have a lot of storytellers in your family? (Being Greek I can't imagine you don't…)

SP: Oh yeah, there are relatives who definitely like to tell stories. No writers, though; I don't know where I came from. Milkman, maybe.

AK: With all the morbid humor, do you have an undertaker in the family?

SP: Wait let me think about that a sec…no. But you know, coming from a huge family you go to tons of funerals. I've been a pall bearer maybe 10 times. And when I'm bored waiting in the wings I talk to the undertakers. They are really creepy. I remember one who took great pride in how well he applied makeup. That scared the $%#* out of me. That's just wrong.

AK: How did your parents react when you told them you wanted to write comic strips?

SP: They weren't worried because I had the law thing going--I had done school and grad school and had the degree. It was a side thing I did once I already had done everything. If I had said it to them when I was a junior in high school, I think it probably would have worried my mom, at least. But because of the way I did it, what's the worst that could happen? I could just go back to being a lawyer.

AK: In some way, shape, or form, do any of your characters reflect anyone in real life?

SP: Ummm…er…ew…yes. Rat is clearly me. He's the most natural voice for me by far. If I had my way, I would do only Rat strips. You would not want to spend a whole weekend with me. I would annoy you. Pig is me, but he's also [my wife] Staci to some extent, like the interplay I see sometimes reflects our conversations. Goat is definitely me: smarter, quieter, wants to stay away from everybody. The Zebra and Crocs are nobody. The Duck is me insofar as I hate my neighbors.

If the characters are going to be believable, they all have to be you. Sparky told me that once. I didn't really understand what he meant then, but now I do. Otherwise, you don't have a real good grasp on them. Really, you don't know anyone like you do yourself.

I cannot write from the female perspective; I can't do it convincingly. They turn out very one-dimensional. I admire writers that can switch genders. It's an amazing thing. I'm hoping my relationship with my daughter changes that. I think she changes how I interact with females. I think she's changed me, so I think she might be reflected eventually in a character.

AK: Good for her! So…what is the meanest thing Rat has ever done?

SP: Tearing Cathy's head off and sticking it in a closet and declaring that her strip had become funnier since she could no longer speak. If I could take something back, it would be that, because I now know her and I feel extra bad.

AK: Do you ever "okay it" before you do a parody of another strip?

SP: I do now, only because I know almost everyone. Bil Keane is actually writing the intro to my next book.

AK: Do you feel impeded by today's political correctness?

SP: Oh yeah. Other than Hi and Lois, there's not a single cartoonist who won't tell you that. It impedes you like crazy. If not for that, I would say "sucks" and "screwed" all the time. I could have references to sex or drugs. It's like playing a piano and they only give you the black keys. I want to have South Park or Family Guy's rules. I got to go to the Family Guy studio one time, and I was looking through the storyboards. Every joke I saw I thought: "This would end my career, this would end my career, THIS would end my career…"

AK: Perhaps when you retire you can go out with a bang. Why is it that comic strip writers (Gary Larson, Bill Watterson) tend to suddenly retire?

SP: My theory on that is that it's akin to novel writing. There is a natural length a novel should be. There's a reason you don't see 4,000-page novels. There's a natural arc that even the best writers have to close up at some point. It's about the 15-year mark. Peanuts and Doonesbury went a little beyond that, but by and large there seems to be something magical about the 15-year mark. The secret is to really expand your set of characters, which is something both Sparky and Trudeau did.

http://www.ingramlibrary.com/MRKNG/FD/0408/ra/Genre.html

By George Author Interview on YouTube

By George: Mr. Washington's Guide to Civility Today Author Steven Selzer has been featured in a video on popular website YouTube.com

Steven Selzer has been in private law practice in Montgomery County, Maryland, for 25 years. He has campaigned to increase civil behavior in the legal profession and is a staunch advocate of civility. He is a graduate of George Washington University, both as an undergrad and as a law student. He is also the author of Life's Little Relaxation Book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6QfcvPGoWc