Local writer to sign book
WAYNESBURG – Artbeat Gallery, 52 High St., Waynesburg, will be open from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday for a book signing by food writer Miriam Rubin of New Freeport.
Rubin will be there to serve up samples from her newest book, “Tomatoes,” a collection of 50 recipes with roots in Southern cooking that transcend geography to find a place on any table. If you love all things tomato, this little book is for you.
Recipes range from down-home inventive to contemporary elegant. Who can resist stand-over-the-sink tomato sandwiches on a perfect summer day? And just when you think you’ve run out of ideas for your bumper crop, consider Rubin’s spiced green tomato crumb cake, green tomato and pork tenderloin biscuit pie, and tomato and golden raisin chutney.
“Tomatoes” offers Rubin’s seasoned tips on growing and preserving, along with suggestions about how to pick the right tomato and what varieties to grow for a range of flavors all year long.
Mother Earth Greenhouse, Washington Township, also will be there with tomato plants for sale and local hydroponic grower Jack Davin will bring fresh produce from his greenhouse near Graysville.
Rubin, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, also is the author of “Grains,” and writes the food and gardening column, Miriam’s Garden, for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She lives with her husband, Dave Lesako, and tends her gardens on their hilltop farm in New Freeport.
In “Tomatoes,” she shares what she’s learned about growing a wide variety of these tasty, sometimes finicky fruits in Greene County soil. The recipes get a dash of history and are served up with personal wit and the wisdom of a real cook.
“Tomatoes” is part of the “Savor the South” cookbook series from the University of North Carolina Press.
Rubin’s food columns can be read in Miriam’s Garden at www.miriamrubin.com/articles/.
“This lyrical little cookbook covers everything from history, cultivation and personal recollection to the tomato techniques delivered in the recipes themselves. Informative to experienced cooks, it will also set up beginners for a lifelong tomato relationship. The easy-to-follow recipes give cooks enough information to make informed choices on tomato varieties and seasonal substitutions and will guide the tomato-addicted through both summer and winter,” said Martha Hall Foose, author of “A Southerly Course: Recipes and Stories from Close to Home.”