Not really from a kitchen garden....
Customer Rating: 




I've had this cookbook for a while, and it is a lovely one. The pictures are beautiful, the recipes are varied and sound delicious, and the few that I've made have turned out well. As a cookbook, it's great.
BUT, it's not really about "Recipes from a Modern Kitchen Garden" as the subtitle suggests. This is the first year I've had a kitchen garden myself and have been looking through my cookbooks with an eye for using what is growing like crazy in my garden - greens, summer squash, turnips, broccoli, potatoes, carrots, beets, beans, tomatoes, corn, you know, the usual stuff. I thought this would be a great resource for recipes, but looking at it again, from the perspective of finding recipes that would help me use my bounty, and it's a flop. The book is heavily meat-centric with lots of recipes for seafood, beef and pork (I don't grow any of those in my garden). The dessert section is luscious, but with a focus on chocolate chip cookies, chocolate layer cake, hazelnut coffee cake, and the like, it sure doesn't help use the strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries that my garden is producing. There are some lovely side vegetable dishes (roasted carrots and fennel caught my eye), but many of the salad recipes are based on beans or grains with herbs and cheese and nuts - more things that don't grow in my garden.
So, while I can recommend the book and I agree that it's both coffee-table and kitchen-counter worthy, it isn't as advertised. Don't expect lots of suggestions for using things from your own Modern Kitchen Garden.