The Complete Book of Garlic or Writing as a Way of Healing

The Complete Book of Garlic: A Guide for Gardeners, Growers, and Serious Cooks

Author: Ted Jordan Meredith

An essential element in cuisines around the world, garlic enjoys near mythic status among cooks, chefs, foodies, and enthusiasts of natural remedies. Worldwide, garlic cultivation occupies over 2 million acres of farmland, an area that has more than doubled since 1970. Yet even garlic fanciers may be unable to tell hardneck from softneck, or Purple Stripe from Rocambole, not to mention the hundreds of cultivated varieties grown today, many with distinct differences in taste and character.

In fact, the wealth of garlic varieties in nearly a dozen horticultural groups rivals that of corn, carrots, apples, and peaches. This book is the most comprehensive and in-depth guide available to what surely should be the next gourmet frontier. From 'Ajo Rojo' to 'Zemo', Meredith presents illustrated profiles of nearly 150 cultivars. Detailed chapters cover natural history, the history of garlic in cultivation, the nuances of cuisine and culture, therapeutic benefits, plant structure, how to cultivate, curing and storage, taxonomy, pests and diseases, and chemistry.

Especially useful are the Quick Guides, which summarize information on growing and buying garlic and provide recommendations for the best-tasting cultivars for specific uses and climates. Lists of garlic sources and organizations are a boon to the aficionado. Whether you share Ted Jordan Meredith's "garlic affliction" or just find the pungent bulb indispensable, you'll understand it as never before with this meticulously researched, lovingly written exploration.

Bonnie Poquette - Library Journal

Meredith modestly refers to himself as a "gatherer and assembler" of information rather than an expert. But he's a garlic aficionado whose verve and thoroughness are evident in this outstanding work, much the way his skills were clear in his Bamboo for Gardens, which won the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries Literature Award in the general interest category. A passionate home grower and consumer of garlic, Meredith cites not only his personal experience but also numerous scientific studies while writing of garlic's natural history, structure, cultivation, taxonomy, diseases, and chemistry. He highlights garlic's influence on economics and various cultures; there are chapters on its importance as both a medicine and as a food (though this book does not supplant garlic cookbooks). A directory organized by horticultural groups includes 150 cultivars widely available in North America. "Quick Guides" list the author's favorite cultivars for specific needs like "early harvesting" or "exceptionally large cloved." Beautifully illustrated, and one of the most comprehensive garlic books in recent years, this is highly recommended for larger public libraries and for all horticultural libraries.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments 7

Pt. 1 All About Garlic

1 Garlic, Economics, and Culture 13

2 Natural History 17

3 Cuisine 29

4 Therapeutic Benefits 53

5 Structure and Function 63

6 Cultivation 101

7 Taxonomy and Diversity 153

8 Diseases and Pests 191

9 Composition and Chemistry 199

Pt. 2 The Essentials

10 Garlic Groups and Cultivars 207

11 Quick Guides 299

Garlic Sources, Organizations, and Newsletters 307

Bibliography 311

Index 325

See also: Heritage of Southern Cooking or Teany Book

Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives

Author: Louise A DeSalvo

Highly acclaimed author and teacher Louise DeSalvo offers the first detailed writing program designed for healing. DeSalvo shows how anyone can use writing as a way to overcome the emotional and physical wounds that arn an inevitable part of life. She culls journals, diaries, letters, and works of dozens of famouns writers and students of the craft to illustrate how people "change physically and psychologically when they work on projects that grow from a deep, authentic place." With insight and with, she illuminates how the writing process has transformed authors such as Virginia Woolf, Henry Miller, Audre Lorde, and Isabel Allende. WRITING AS A WAY OF HEALING gives valuable advice and practical techniques to guide and inpsire both experienced and beginning writers.

Library Journal

A professor of creative writing at Hunter College and a frequent guest on National Public Radio, DeSalvo (Vertigo: A Memoir, LJ 7/96) brings 20 years of writing experience to this work. She recommends writing in spare moments, uncensored, and asks her students to write five pages per week. She advises writing every detail as a reporter to move beyond a trauma. Writing links feelings of pain, grief, and loss to an event and speeds healing. DeSalvo presents seven stages of writing, from preparation/germination to completion/going public. She suggests writing a process journal so the work flows smoothly and warns against self-sabotage in the form of missed deadlines and last-minute scrambling. When the writing is completed, sharing stories in a group with other empathetic writers will sharpen the narrative. DeSalvos work is similar to Julia Camerons The Right To Write (LJ 1/99), though more academic. Camerons work is recommended for public libraries, while DeSalvos is better for higher-level writing classes.Lisa S. Wise, Broome Cty. P.L., Binghamton, NY

Kirkus Reviews

How writing can be used to recover from trauma and as a tool for personal growth: encouragement and suggestions from a professor of literature and creative writing. DeSalvo (Hunter Coll.) is working here from her own experience: a tumultuous childhood, the loss of her mother and sister in adulthood, and severe health problems left her in turmoil that began to calm when she wrote about her experiences (Vertigo: A Memoir, 1996). Years of seeing her students find similar succor has further convinced her of the special value writing holds as a therapeutic tool. It's cheap, doesn't take much time, is self-initiated and flexible, can be private (or public), is easily portable, can be done in sickness or in health; "writing to heal requires no innate talent, though we become more skilled as we write, especially when we pay careful attention to the process." DeSalvo is careful to caution throughout, howeever, that writing mustn't become a substitute for medical care. DeSalvo refers extensively to James W. Pennebaker's Opening Up; he and colleagues studied in depth the relationship between writing about difficult feelings and improving health, and then specifically what kind of writing led to healing after traumatic experiences. DeSalvo especially cites Virginia Woolf, Isabel Allende, and Alice Walker as practitioners of therapeutic writing. She argues strongly that writing "is a very sturdy ladder out of the Pit to reach freedom and safety." Her guide is a reasonable starting point for those who hope she's right.

What People Are Saying

Sarah Ban Breathnach
"Louise DeSalvo's courageous passion for binding the soul's wounds through the mystical alchemy of words and paper always moves me deeply. Both challenging and comforting, WRITING AS A WAY OF HEALING is an exquisite gift of grace. It will help you write yourself out of the widerness of pain and denial into Wholeness."

Arnold M. Ludwig
"Louise DeSalvo makes a convincing case for the therapeutic value of writing in her new book WRITING AS A WAY OF HEALING. I suspect that after reading this book many inspired readers will choose to abandon the psychiatrist's couch for the writer's desk, and do so with benefit."