A solid cookbook with lots of cool recipes to try if the ingredients can be found of course!

thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

This is a very interesting concept for a cookbook. It has a very rustic vibe to it and it certainly stands out from many other books in the genre. For one, the photographs are a lot brighter and more saturated than most conventional cookbooks, which may stick to more neutral palettes.

While it's likely that I'll only be able to use some of the recipes, it presents unique approaches and can serve as a good inspiration. In addition to the recipes itself, McGowan provides plenty of useful information, including pantry essentials, foraging safety, and additional uses for various herbs and plants. It's quite a niche cookbook, but it's one worth having on the shelf.

This is a nice book of recipes that incorporate a lot of different herbs and flowers. I love books that use foraged and herbal ingredients but this one fell short a bit for me. I didn't find myself really wanting to make that many of the recipes and something about the aesthetic was a miss for me too. The font used for the recipe titles was a green, amateur looking font and the photos seemed like pretty art but not really like tasty recipes. Take a look at the cover dish for an example of what I'm talking about. It's very artistic but not necessarily something I want to actually eat. As another example, a summer cake made with elderflower syrup (which I love and make often) is piled high with fruits like strawberries that still have their leaves on them along with big whole grapes, clementines, etc. and then sprinkled with slivered flower petals. Again, it's a pretty picture but there's no real frosting on the cake and you'd need to take it apart to take all the leaves off the strawberries and cut the fruits up. Would this be good for impressing people at a dinner party or posting to Instagram? Absolutely. Would it be just plain delicious, accessible food? Absolutely not.

The biggest reasons this book was a miss for me is that the recipes do not include nutritional information like calories, carbs, fat, protein, fiber, etc. and that they don't work for our family's dietary needs. I feed family members who are gluten free, dairy free, keto, etc. and these tend to use a fair amount of white flour, sugar, etc. I still will adapt recipes if they look tantalizing enough but with the lack of photos for every recipe and the way they seemed more art-inspired than taste-inspired, I just didn't feel drawn to the majority of them. In some cases, the herbs seemed added as an afterthought to make them fit, like a recipe for no-bake chocolate oat cookies where flower petals are sprinkled on. I also wish she included more different kinds of herbs (especially the many we can forage) and I felt that the information was often incomplete. For instance, for nettles she says the parts used are leaves and roots and she makes no mention of nettle seeds which are highly regarded by many herbalists and foragers. Also, she concentrates a lot on herbs, flowers and herb-like products you can purchase like reishi, butterfly pea flower, maca and shatavari, instead of the hundreds of wonderful wild ones that are often growing right in our own back yards like catmint, wild lettuce, milk thistle, black locust flowers, marshmallow root, raspberry leaf, bee balm, ox-eye daisy leaves, garlic mustard (which is invasive and we help locations when we harvest it), wild mint, redbud flowers, ground elder, honeysuckle flowers, wood sorrel, linden flowers and leaves, pineapple weed, purslane and so many more.

I will read through the book again before deleting my ARC and see if I was just not inspired the week I read through this one (it happens). If so, I'll come back and revise my review. Generally though, I bookmark all kinds of recipes to try when I review a book like this and for whatever reason this one didn't do that for me with the first reading.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

Forest + Home by Spencre McGowan is a goals book for me. I have dabbled in foraging and using herbs that I've grown and flowers in my cooking. This book has great recipes and ideas and some full color images of recipes. I would use this as a reference book. At first using the sections on lemon balm and foraging weeds and working my way up and being inspired by all the other use of nature ideas. Great book and good inspiration for anyone who wants to try more natural eating and remedies.

Thank you to Andrews McMeel Publishing, NetGalley, and Spencre L.R. McGowan for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I am a cookbook enthusiast and absolute food lover. I've also followed Spencre on Instagram for years (@gingertooth_) while in my own herbalism studies, so I was very excited to receive this book from #NetGalley!
Great cookbooks are not just about incredible recipes. They tell stories, and teach us different perspectives. And the photography is important, too! Forest + Home has a beautiful collection of photos and stories to go along with recipes that not only sound delicious, but seem fairly accessible. She goes into detail about her favorite herbs and adaptogens, and I was really happy to see she included glossaries, warnings, and responsible tips for foraging. Foraging has become extremely popular recently and Spencre discusses ethical foraging, too.

I will definitely be trying some of these recipes, like the Rhubarb Strawberry Plum Rose Sauce, Lemon Balm Coconut Rice, and Lavender Limoncello. Also, putting lavender in macaroons? Yes please! I could see myself gifting this book to herb and flower-loving friends as well as using these recipes in my own kitchen.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I liked the concept of this book, but it wasn't for me.

The author shares herbal recipes from pasta to drinks along with information on how to prepare them. Some of them are time intensive but typically have attainable ingredients since the book is also a guide to growing some of your own stuff. That being said the author doesn't go into the history of some of these foods - they seem to present turmeric milk and other ideas as their own and not things that people have been doing globally for centuries. It rubbed me the wrong way to see the way some of these recipes are talked about.

Overall some interesting ideas, but not for me.

McGownan travels the United States to demonstrate how to bring nature into your kitchen. Montana, Maine and other rural states provide a backdrop as well as a natural “grocery store” where cooks, both seasoned and inexperienced will find something to like here. Beautiful photos and easy to follow recipes will make this a welcome addition to any cook’s shelf

It has a nice concept and I enjoyed looking through the pages. The recipes use a variety of wild herbs and flowers and they are separated by seasons. It's a connection between food and nature. The photos are very beautiful but the recipe name font isn't my favorite and make it a little confusing. Besides how much I would love to try these recipes I probably wouldn't make most of them because some I don't know what some of the ingredients are and I get worried about using wild flowers in my food. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review