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The Cook's Garden

A Gardener's Guide to Selecting, Growing, and Savoring the Tastiest Vegetables of Each Season: A Cookbook

Author Kevin West
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Hardcover
$45.00 US
Knopf
7.75"W x 9.44"H x 1.53"D   | 58 oz | 8 per carton
On sale Aug 26, 2025 | 496 Pages | 9780593319321
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From the critically acclaimed author of Saving the Season comes an accessible, comprehensive, and inspiring guide to growing your own garden and incorporating homegrown produce into everyday cooking—no matter how much or how little space you have.

For Kevin West, the surest path to a successful garden leads through the kitchen door. And preparing for a fantastic meal of homegrown vegetables—the kind of meal that leaves you not only satisfied, but grateful—is just what he wants to help you learn to do.

In The Cook's Garden, West gives readers the tools and confidence they need to grow food for their own meals. From gardening basics and advice on harvesting, to delicious recipes showing how to make the best use of produce in any season—including primers on freezing surplus vegetables, making pantry staples such as canned tomatoes, and effectively using stored produce—this book promises to inspire anyone, even if their growing plot is as small as a window box in a city apartment. West’s erudite yet practical guide is interwoven with meditations on the beauty, poetry, and spirituality inherent in growing and preparing one’s own food.

The Cook's Garden guides readers through jumpstarting their gardens and revolutionizing their kitchens—while also nourishing their minds and souls.
“Kevin generously shares a lifetime of growing knowledge and instructions to shepherd the vitality of a victory garden to the table. This is a recipe book for anyone whose cooking begins in the soil.”
—Clare de Boer, James Beard Award–nominated chef, Stissing House and writer of The Best Bit Substack

“I can’t imagine a more exhaustive, or more poetic, garden primer. The book makes starting your own garden not just comprehensible but almost inevitable.”
—Tamar Adler, author of An Everlasting Meal and The Everlasting Meal Cookbook

“With The Cook’s Garden, Kevin West proves himself a true polymath, at once professor, wordsmith, wise country guide, and wonder-struck naturalist; as deft with his pen as he is with skillet and hoe. Thorough, witty, rigorous, and brimming with sensuality, The Cook’s Garden is the whole package.”
—Sara Franklin, author of The Editor

"The Cook’s Garden is an inspirational self portrait of a passionate cook and his garden plot. In a voice that is at once wise and personal, Kevin West shares his considerable gardening and cooking experience and the symbiotic seasonal joys to be had in both. Packed with welcome and useful information, simultaneously scholarly and down home, this book is an indispensable guide for gardeners and cooks alike."
—David Tanis, author of David Tanis Market Cooking
© William Hereford
Kevin West comes from East Tennessee farmers and Smoky Mountain settlers, country people with generations of commitment to growing delicious food. He is the author of Saving the Season: A Cook’s Guide to Home Canning, Pickling, and Preserving and also coauthored The Grand Central Market Cookbook and contributed to Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original. He lives the Berkshires, in rural western Massachusetts. View titles by Kevin West

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About

From the critically acclaimed author of Saving the Season comes an accessible, comprehensive, and inspiring guide to growing your own garden and incorporating homegrown produce into everyday cooking—no matter how much or how little space you have.

For Kevin West, the surest path to a successful garden leads through the kitchen door. And preparing for a fantastic meal of homegrown vegetables—the kind of meal that leaves you not only satisfied, but grateful—is just what he wants to help you learn to do.

In The Cook's Garden, West gives readers the tools and confidence they need to grow food for their own meals. From gardening basics and advice on harvesting, to delicious recipes showing how to make the best use of produce in any season—including primers on freezing surplus vegetables, making pantry staples such as canned tomatoes, and effectively using stored produce—this book promises to inspire anyone, even if their growing plot is as small as a window box in a city apartment. West’s erudite yet practical guide is interwoven with meditations on the beauty, poetry, and spirituality inherent in growing and preparing one’s own food.

The Cook's Garden guides readers through jumpstarting their gardens and revolutionizing their kitchens—while also nourishing their minds and souls.

Praise

“Kevin generously shares a lifetime of growing knowledge and instructions to shepherd the vitality of a victory garden to the table. This is a recipe book for anyone whose cooking begins in the soil.”
—Clare de Boer, James Beard Award–nominated chef, Stissing House and writer of The Best Bit Substack

“I can’t imagine a more exhaustive, or more poetic, garden primer. The book makes starting your own garden not just comprehensible but almost inevitable.”
—Tamar Adler, author of An Everlasting Meal and The Everlasting Meal Cookbook

“With The Cook’s Garden, Kevin West proves himself a true polymath, at once professor, wordsmith, wise country guide, and wonder-struck naturalist; as deft with his pen as he is with skillet and hoe. Thorough, witty, rigorous, and brimming with sensuality, The Cook’s Garden is the whole package.”
—Sara Franklin, author of The Editor

"The Cook’s Garden is an inspirational self portrait of a passionate cook and his garden plot. In a voice that is at once wise and personal, Kevin West shares his considerable gardening and cooking experience and the symbiotic seasonal joys to be had in both. Packed with welcome and useful information, simultaneously scholarly and down home, this book is an indispensable guide for gardeners and cooks alike."
—David Tanis, author of David Tanis Market Cooking

Author

© William Hereford
Kevin West comes from East Tennessee farmers and Smoky Mountain settlers, country people with generations of commitment to growing delicious food. He is the author of Saving the Season: A Cook’s Guide to Home Canning, Pickling, and Preserving and also coauthored The Grand Central Market Cookbook and contributed to Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original. He lives the Berkshires, in rural western Massachusetts. View titles by Kevin West

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