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3 books match the query 'Mirocha, Paul'

cover of Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants

Cooking the Wild Southwest

Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants

Carolyn Niethammer, Illustrations by Paul Mirocha

University of Arizona Press, 2011

Over the last few decades, interest in eating locally has grown quickly. From just-picked apples in Washington to fresh peaches in Georgia, local food movements and farmer’s markets have proliferated all over the country. Desert dwellers in the Southwest are taking a new look at prickly pear, mesquite, and other native plants.

Many people’s idea of cooking with southwestern plants begins and ends with prickly pear jelly. With this update to the classic Tumbleweed Gourmet, master cook Carolyn Niethammer opens a window on the incredible bounty of the southwestern deserts and offers recipes to help you bring these plants to your table. Included here are sections featuring each of twenty-three different desert plants. The chapters include basic information, harvesting techniques, and general characteristics. But the real treat comes in the form of some 150 recipes collected or developed by the author herself. Ranging from every-day to gourmet, from simple to complex, these recipes offer something for cooks of all skill levels. Some of the recipes also include stories about their origin and readers are encouraged to tinker with the ingredients and enjoy desert foods as part of their regular diet.

Featuring Paul Mirocha’s finely drawn illustrations of the various southwestern plants discussed, this volume will serve as an indispensible guide from harvest to table. Whether you’re looking for more ways to prepare local foods, ideas for sustainable harvesting, or just want to expand your palette to take in some out-of-the-ordinary flavors, Cooking the Wild Southwest is sure to delight.
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cover of Gathering the Desert

Gathering the Desert

Gary Paul Nabhan; Illustrations by Paul Mirocha

University of Arizona Press, 1985

Winner of the John Burroughs Association’s John Burroughs Medal for natural history writing and a Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association

To the untrained eye, a desert is a wasteland that defies civilization; yet the desert has been home to native cultures for centuries and offers sustenance in its surprisingly wide range of plant life. Gary Paul Nabhan has combed the desert in search of plants forgotten by all but a handful of American Indians and Mexican Americans. In Gathering the Desert readers will discover that the bounty of the desert is much more than meets the eye—whether found in the luscious fruit of the stately organpipe cactus or in the lowly tepary bean.

Nabhan has chosen a dozen of the more than 425 edible wild species found in the Sonoran Desert to demonstrate just how bountiful the land can be. From the red-hot chiltepines of Mexico to the palms of Palm Springs, each plant exemplifies a symbolic or ecological relationship which people of this region have had with plants through history. Each chapter focuses on a particular plant and is accompanied by an original drawing by artist Paul Mirocha. Word and picture together create a total impression of plants and people as the book traces the turn of seasons in the desert.
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cover of The Sonoran Desert: A Literary Field Guide

The Sonoran Desert

A Literary Field Guide

Edited by Eric Magrane and Christopher Cokinos, Illustrations by Paul Mirocha

University of Arizona Press, 2016

A land of austerity and bounty, the Sonoran Desert is a place that captures imaginations and hearts. It is a place where barbs snag, thorns prick, and claws scratch. A place where lizards scramble and pause, hawks hunt like wolves, and bobcats skulk in creosote.

Both literary anthology and hands-on field guide, The Sonoran Desert is a groundbreaking book that melds art and science. It captures the stunning biodiversity of the world’s most verdant desert through words and images. More than fifty poets and writers—including Christopher Cokinos, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Ken Lamberton, Eric Magrane, Jane Miller, Gary Paul Nabhan, Alberto Ríos, Ofelia Zepeda, and many others—have composed responses to key species of this striking desert. Each creative contribution is joined by an illustration by award-winning artist Paul Mirocha and scientific information about the creature or plant authored by the book’s editors.

From the saguaro to the mountain lion, from the black-tailed jackrabbit to the mesquite, the species represented here have evoked compelling and creative responses from each contributor. Just as writers such as Edward Abbey and Ellen Meloy have memorialized the desert, this collection is sure to become a new classic, offering up the next generation of voices of this special and beautiful place, the Sonoran Desert.

 
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