Book Description
The Best of Virginia Farms uses a variety of writing features (interviews, sidebars, tours, essays, and recipes) along with unique illustrations and maps to convey America's fascinating agricultural story. The book reveals the intimate relationship between a state's agriculture and its overall identity. America's oldest farm state, Virginia has a fascinating farming history. In addition to the expected crops, readers will also find information on wine and spirits, Christmas trees, and Virginia's famous horse farm industry. Whether it's a tour of Virginia's historic plantations or a traditional holiday recipe from Colonial Williamsburg, The Best of Virginia Farms will provide a unique perspective on the Old Dominion. Filled with fun and practical how-to information, thisbook will inspire readers to prepare a recipe, take a tour, or enjoy a new product they have never tried. Promising to enrich the spirit, this book taps into the traditions and mystique that surround farming in Virginia and celebrate the family bonds and rugged individuality of rural life.


From the Back Cover
Through recipes, tours, interviews, essays, maps, and illustrations, The Best of Virginia Farms Cookbook & Tour Book tells the fascinating story of Virginia agriculture. The book reveals the intimate relationship between agriculture and Virginia's history, character, and personality. With a light, often humorous tone, it entertains, enlightens, and educates readers about Virginia's land, people, and food.
Readers will find hands-on, show-and-tell insights into traditional small-farm values, organic farming's successful practices, sustainable agriculture's cutting-edge developments, and corporate farming's most enlightened programs.
The Best of Virginia Farms will give you pleasure as it reveals the history and mystique that surround Virginia farming. It will enrich your spirit as it celebrates the family bonds and the formation of uniquely American character molded by a way of life directly connected to the land.


About the Author
The author of five cookbooks, CiCi Williamson has been writing a weekly food column in numerous newspapers across the country for 21 years. She's also a travel writer and photographer who has visited more than 80 countries and written hundreds of travel articles. But the McLean, Virginia resident always returns home thinking her state is the most beautiful and diverse.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Fish and Shellfish Introduction As the sun rises and its coppery reflection shimmers on Chesapeake Bay, Virginia's "watermen" (commercial fishermen) are already on their job of landing 500 million pounds of seafood a year. Soon they will point their skipjacks (historic bay sailboats) and oyster boats toward the marshy shores and beckoning sea grasses to deposit their catch. What's for dinner tonight? Take your pick from almost 300 species: Saltwater fish and shellfish or freshwater fish. Saltwater mixes into the Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. Freshwater flows from the Bay's 48 major rivers and 100 small tributaries. Thus the Bay can support both fresh and marine life forms, plus those that can tolerate fluctuating salt levels. The great Chesapeake Bay dominates coastal Virginia. Its marshlands offer shelter for millions of migrating waterfowl; its tides nurse the state's network of creeks and rivers. Broad sloughs, coves, wetlands, and tidal ponds intermingle and embrace three lush, green "necks" (peninsulas) cut out by the long, wide mouths of the Potomac, Rappahannock, York and James Rivers.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Best of Virginia Farms Cookbook and Tour Book uses a variety of writing features (interviews, sidebars, tours, essays, and recipes) along with unique illustrations and maps to convey America's fascinating agricultural story. The book reveals the intimate relationship between the agriculture of Virginia and its overall identity. And with a light, often humorous, tone, you are given detailed and dependable information and invited to get to know Virginia from a farming perspective. You will learn about the people, places, cultures, and histories associated with the state's most commonly grown foods and key non-edible agricultural products. And in the process of weaving this tapestry of information, you will also gain insight into America's traditional small-farm values, organic farming's successful mainstream practices, agriculture's cutting-edge developments, and corporate farming's most enlightened programs. Filled with fun and practical how-to information, this book will inspire you to prepare a recipe, take a tour, or enjoy a new product you have never tried.
By tapping into the traditions and mystique that surround farming in America and celebrating the family bonds and rugged individuality of rural life, The Best of Virginia Farms Cookbook and Tour Book promises to enrich your spirit.

SYNOPSIS