From the Author
One day you wake up and your fantasy has become reality, and you are more surprised than anyone at what you've managed to pull off. This is how it happened to me: I longed for a simpler life, I quit my big magazine job and my fancy suburb, moved to an island, became a freelance writer, sold my high heels and frilly skirts at a consignment shop, and bought a pair of work boots.
I planted a teeny garden. Then a bigger one. I met a carpenter, fell in love, moved into a creaky old farmhouse on the edge of an endless hay field, and planted an even bigger garden.
Then the carpenter built me a little farm stand from salvaged wood. We stuck it at the end of the dirt driveway and neighbors and friends and visitors came shopping for lovely lettuce and skinny string beans and glossy cherry tomatoes from our market garden.
And we cooked from our garden every day. We grilled Fairy Tale eggplants and stir-fried Shuko Pac Choi with lime basil. We made lobster rolls with fresh peas and strawberry-rhubarb crisp with brown-sugar-pecan topping.
We got some baby chicks and watched them grow rosy red combs and spangly feathers and dance in the grass with squirmy bugs. We fell in love with the Ladies even before they started laying those miracles...And so we got a few more chickens. Then a few more. Then 500 (yes).
We built a hoop house and a bigger farm stand and we planted more veggies. Even gave ourselves a real name: Green Island Farm.
That's the short story of how the little farm (and a lovely book inspired by it) came to be. The whole story features wild raspberries, wild turkeys, a rope swing, a hurricane, and a very special little girl and her pet dog. I hope you enjoy reading and cooking from Fresh From the Farm as much as I enjoyed writing it. With 125 recipes and 200 photos--not to mention an appendix of farm designs--I think you'll find something you'll like, whether it's a Backyard Berry Ice Cream Pie with Chocolate Sauce or a Roasted Squash & Pear Salad with Ginger Lime Vinaigrette or a design for a small chicken coop or a new variety of lettuce to grow. Or just a good story.
About the Author
Susie Middleton is not only a cook and a writer, but a farmer, too. The former chief editor of Fine Cooking magazine, Susie also authored Fast, Fresh & Green and The Fresh & Green Table. Susie has been a life-long writer, and in addition to blogging regularly at www.sixburnersue.com and occasionally on the Huffington Post, she writes both essays and food features for national and regional magazines. She started growing vegetables commercially in 2010 on Martha’s Vineyard.