Grains for Every Season

I loved McFadden's Six Seasons and what it did to elevate vegetables across seasons, and this take is similar, only for a wide variety of grains. I appreciated how each grain is stretched in its representation--from breakfast to dinner, from main course to salad to dessert. Rarely do the recipes call for fussy ingredients, and I'm excited to make many of them that introduce less familiar grains.

This advanced cookbook is a great fit for libraries with large selections of specialized cookbooks, or for home cooks who are devoted to whole grain cooking. Recipes draw from global ingredients, and include many plant-based dishes. The photography is rich and tantalizing, and includes several spreads with progressive photos of more intensive recipes. Every dish looks delicious and homey, and I see this circulating well at a library. It is a good acquisition for a home cook who is experienced with whole grain cooking and who has access to a large grocery budget and/or specialty ingredients that may not be carried at national grocery stores.

I was more than impressed with how well this book is laid out, the beautiful photography, the recipes and the fact that it is filled with plenty of gluten-free grains. Yes there is a section on wheat, but there is also millet, brown rice, wild rice, buckwheat, corn, oats.... They all get their own section. What I love most, besides the delicious looking recipes, is the fact that each section talks about the grain itself. What it tastes like, the weight per cup, the water ratio. All of these small details put this book ahead of all the others I've seen. As someone who mills their own grain, having those weights per cup is invaluable to me, it saves me time from looking them up.
There are both sweet and savory dishes in here. Full meals, to sides, to appetizers, to dessert. Simple and easy to follow without super weird or difficult to source ingredients. Oh and a picture for each recipe which I love. If you're looking for a good introduction to whole grains and how to use them, then this is the book for you.

This cookbook is gorgeous and will absolutely inspire you to cook with whole grains. Each grain (and yes, some that are gluten free too!) gets its own section with a huge, close-up picture of the grain at the start. Throughout the book there are also pictures of rolling fields of grain that make perusing the recipes feel… almost patriotic. McFadden’s recipes can be fiddly, but are worth it—for example, my mother always puts her celery in ice water before serving it now after reading his last book. The recipes in this book range in difficulty from a bowl of oatmeal to making your own pasta by hand. A must-read!

This was a great cookbook and I really enjoyed reading through the recipes. I definitely found some that I will be making.

Perfect comforting food for the cold season, or really, any season.
The layout is beautiful, the recipes are well-organized, Joshua McFadden's writing is engaging and informative, Many of the recipes require a certain level of commitment, but don't let that deter you; the results will be well worth it.