Nonfiction

The emerald horizon : the history of nature in Iowa

Cornelia Fleischer Mutel

508.777 /Mutel
Nonfiction, Nature, Science

A terrific overview of the natural history of Iowa. Any state would be lucky to have such a primer for residents to better understand the world outside their doors. -Jason

Burn the ice : the American culinary revolution and its end

Kevin (Food writer) Alexander

641.509 /Alexander
Nonfiction

James Beard Award-winning food journalist Kevin Alexander traces an exhilarating golden age in American dining. Over the past decade, Kevin Alexander saw American dining turned on its head. Starting in 2006, the food world underwent a transformation as the established gatekeepers of American culinary creativity in New York City and the Bay Area were forced to contend with Portland, Oregon. Its new, no-holds-barred, casual fine-dining style became a template for other cities, and a culinary revolution swept across America. Traditional ramen shops opened in Oklahoma City. Craft cocktail speakeasies appeared in Boise. Poke bowls sprung up in Omaha. Entire neighborhoods, like Williamsburg in Brooklyn, and cities like Austin, were suddenly unrecognizable to long-term residents, their names becoming shorthand for the so-called hipster movement. At the same time, new media companies such as Eater and Serious Eats launched to chronicle and cater to this developing scene, transforming nascent star chefs into proper celebrities. Emerging culinary television hosts like Anthony Bourdain inspired a generation to use food as the lens for different cultures. It seemed, for a moment, like a glorious belle epoque of eating and drinking in America. And then it was over. To tell this story, Alexander journeys through the travails and triumphs of a number of key chefs, bartenders, and activists, as well as restaurants and neighborhoods whose fortunes were made during this veritable gold rush--including Gabriel Rucker, an originator of the 2006 Portland restaurant scene; Tom Colicchio of Gramercy Tavern and Top Chef fame; as well as hugely influential figures, such as André Prince Jeffries of Prince's Hot Chicken Shack in Nashville; and Carolina barbecue pitmaster Rodney Scott. He writes with rare energy, telling a distinctly American story, at once timeless and cutting-edge, about unbridled creativity and ravenous ambition. To "burn the ice" means to melt down whatever remains in a kitchen's ice machine at the end of the night. Or, at the bar, to melt the ice if someone has broken a glass in the well. It is both an end and a beginning. It is the firsthand story of a revolution in how Americans eat and drink.

A look at modern american cooking and restaurant/foodie entrepreneurs. Chapters follow the individual cooking journeys of influential chefs and the food scenes in various parts of America. Documents the boom/bust of some of these areas and the excesses that can come with celebrity chef status. -Jason

Love poems : (for people with children)

John Kenney

811.6 /Kenney
Nonfiction, Poetry

"...John Kenney is back with a brand new collection of poems, this time taking on the greatest "joy" in life: children. Kenney covers it all, from newborns, toddlers, and sleep deprivation, to the terrible twos, terrible tweens, and terrible teens. A parent's love is unconditional, but sometimes that button can't help but be pushed. Between back to school shopping, summer vacations that never end, the awkwardness of puberty, the inevitable post-college moving back in, and more, a parent's job is never done, whether they like it or not."--Amazon.com

These poems are hilarious. They will surely make parents smile--and know someone else knows their pain (and love). -Melody

Drawdown : the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming

363.73874 /Drawdown
Nonfiction, Science, Nature

Ten years ago, environmentalist, entrepreneur, and writer Hawken reported, in Blessed Unrest, on diverse activist groups working independently "toward ecological sustainability and social justice." The results of their efforts, along with those of numerous scientific inquiries, generated Hawken's latest contribution to the global sustainability movement, Project Drawdown. "Drawdown" is the point at which greenhouse gases will peak and begin to decline, "the most important goal for humanity to undertake." And one toward which, as Hawken and his contributors so assiduously record in this comprehensive and exacting compilation of vivid exposition and data, we are making progress. Hawken's coalition of experts in fields as varied as biology and economics, geology and engineering, along with such writers as Elizabeth Kolbert, Bill McKibben, and Michael Pollan, take full measure of the 100 "most effective solutions" in a meticulous inventory of current global-warming-reversing practices that are "commonly available, economically viable and scientifically valid." Richly illustrated and accessible, if fervently detailed, this enlightening inventory, backed by an open-source database, covers advances in energy, land use, food, transport, and buildings. The diverse discoveries and achievements, all lucidly explained, from modest domestic adaptations to infrastructure advances, forest restoration to wave and tidal energy, do attest, as Hawken observes, to the power of "our collective imagination, creativity, and conviction." A rigorous and profoundly important resource.

Added by Candice