Every once in awhile a really absorbing book crosses our desk.  One such book is Mark Diacono’s A Taste of the Unexpected . He quite rightly believes that it is a waste of time and effort growing the usual fruit and veg available on the supermarket shelves, they are usually cheap to buy and don’t taste that much different to what’s available at the shops.

In A Taste of the Unexpected Mark discusses growing  the more unusual fruit and vegetables – Tree Fruit, Nuts, Soft Fruit, Herbs & Spices, Beans & Greens, Leaves & Flowers and Buried Treasures. He reveals that it is no harder to grow the unusual and utterly delicious than it is the entirely ordinary.

Each chapter gives fundamental advice on conditions each plant thrives on, varieties available, growing methods and process of harvesting. In addition he includes a number of mouthwatering recipes for all of the crops featured.

The book is winner of the Guild of Food Writers Food Book of the Year Award 2011.  Author, Mark Diacono, is head gardener at River Cottage and owner of Otter Farm, which has become known as the ‘Climate Change Farm.’ On his farm in Devon, Mark grows gourmet delights such as gojiberries, Egyptian walking onions, kai lan, salsify, Chilean guava, day lilies and Szechuan pepper.

Exciting and inspirational, A Taste of the Unexpected will redefine your approach to growing your own food. As Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage puts it “…I believe that this is a book that will, if you let it, if you really use it, change how and what you grow, what you cook and how you eat, forever and for the better.”

It is a book that we will definitely be using as a constant source of reference at Wickedfood Earth.

Interested in buying this book? Visit - Red Pepper Books – The South African online bookshop, is able to offer you great prices on any book you are looking for, and they deliver to your door. Pay only R369 for this book (Recommended Retail Price = R410)!  Red Pepper Books is offering Wickedfood Cooking School subscribers an EXTRA 10% off this book. Simply type in the promotional code WICKEDFOOD on the shipping page of the checkout process and your purchase will be reduced by a further 10%, and therefore pay just R332.10, a total saving of R77,90.

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built Johannesburg cooking studio. Cookery classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – teambuilding cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our cooking lessons are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and team building cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

“Soil enriched by organic matter is the foundation of a healthy food garden that produces vegetables and fruit of high nutritional content. Compost gives plants the opportunity to graze about with their roots for what they need, just like chickens are healthier when able to scratch around an orchard for grass, worms, and herbs than when they are fed a scientific formula.”

This is the foundation of the  book – One Magic Square: The Easy, Organic Way to Grow Your Own Food on a 1 Metre Square by Lolo Houbein

Australian gardener, Lolo Houbain’s popular book on creating themed and small 1m2 food gardens, has reached South Africa. Starting with a discussion on the types of food production in the world, she then encourages the reader to start his own small food garden using one of 30 different designs. She also covers how to prepare the beds, composting, pests, and vegetable and herb culture. Finally she has a section on vegetables and herbs that you can plant.

Having read One Magic Square and then was subsequently inspired to try out her techniques, I found that this is the book’s main advantage. It inspires the reader to get out and make a veggie bed, start seedlings in cardboard toilet roll tubes and plant them out in one of her designs.

But this is where the book starts to become less useful. Like many motivators, it is light on practical experience. She tries to cover too many points and the advice given is often insufficient. It isn’t as simple as she says to start and maintain a garden. And of course, to anybody growing veggies and herbs in a small backyard plot, the aim is not to save money (for you won’t), but to gain the satisfaction on growing something local that you have planted and that is conveniently located outside your kitchen door.

If you are a starter or initiator like Lolo, or somebody who needs a spark to get your butt into gear, then you will find One Magic Square useful. If you are a detail person or somebody who is a little unsure of starting new projects, then you will probably need another more detailed book to help you with your gardening project. Try either of the following:

• Pat Featherstone’s Grow to live
• Grow vegetables by Alan Buckingham

(Review by Tim Truluck,  Johannesburg Slowfood convivium leader).

Interested in buying this book? Visit - Red Pepper Books – The South African online bookshop, is able to offer you great prices on any book you are looking for, and they deliver to your door. Pay only R180 for this book (Recommended Retail Price = R225)!  Red Pepper Books is offering Wickedfood Cooking School subscribers an EXTRA 10% off this book. Simply type in the promotional code WICKEDFOOD on the shipping page of the checkout process and your purchase will be reduced by a further 10%.

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built Johannesburg cooking studio. Cookery classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – teambuilding cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our cooking lessons are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and team building cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

Darina Allen runs the world-renowned Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland. While teaching students, she discovered that as a society, we have lost kitchen skills that our grandmothers had known.

She set about developing a series of  “forgotten skills” classes,  including “How to Keep a Few Chickens in the Garden,” “How to Cure a Pig in a Day,” “How to Build a Smoker and Smoke your own Food,” and others on foraging, gardening, dairy, and topics on eating what one grew. (She’s a bit like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – with good hair). If you’re so inclined, you can sign up for one of her demonstration classes at around €115, excluding flights and accommodation.

Or you can acquire her latest book, Forgotten Skills of Cooking. She has spun her courses into one book, with 700 recipes in 600 pages – it is not the type of book you would like to pass the time with in a meeting hall, but rather something to devour snuggled up in your most comfortable favourite chair. It’s one of those books that should stand as the sole cookbook for those who want only one book on food. For those drawn by the rural allure of sustainability and being more in control of the food that comes to your table, this book is even more of a gem.

The delicious recipes show you how to use your homegrown produce to its best, and include ideas for using forgotten cuts of meat, baking bread and making yoghurt. The vegetables and herbs chapter is stuffed with growing tips to satisfy even those with the smallest garden, and there are plenty of suggestions for using gluts of vegetables, making your own preserves, pickles and jams.

As Nigel Slater put it, when writing a review on the book for The Observer – ‘There’s not much this gourmet grande dame doesn’t know’

Interested in buying this book? Visit - Red Pepper Books – The South African online bookshop, they are able to offer you great prices on any book you are looking for.

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built Johannesburg cooking studio. Cookery classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – teambuilding cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our cooking lessons are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and team building cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

As with all Dorling & Kindersley books The new complete book of Self Sufficiency, subtitled  The Classic Guide for Realists and Dreamers by John Seymour is not only highly informative, but also beautifully produced.  This new edition of an enduring classic from the founding father of modern self-sufficiency, is still the key reference to living off the land. Covering all the practicals from ploughing fields to milking cows as well as information on how to create an urban organic garden and harness natural energy, this is perfect for anyone aspiring to the self-sufficient lifestyle.

John Seymour was  committed as ever to living a better life, more simply and was acknowledged as the founding father of the self-sufficiency movement. He was an active campaigner for the countryside and the environment. Students come from around the world to learn about his lifestyle and philosophies at the School of Self-Sufficiency he established in southern Ireland. He died in 2004.

You may well remember Clarissa Dickson Wright from the TV series Two Fat Ladies. In one of her more recent publications,  A Greener Life, Clarissa and Johnny Scott look at how to live a more natural and self-sufficient life. They explore  issues from growing your own vegetables to using alternative energies, from keeping livestock to mending your own socks, so that you have the knowledge to start living the good life.

A fascinating overview on how to take more control of what you use and eat. Especially fun for armchair farmers.

Interested in buying this book? visit - Red Pepper Books – The South African online bookshop, they will be able to offer you great prices on any book you are looking for.

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.