Caz Hildebrand

This is a very peculiar book. The choice of spices includes many that are hard to get. I did check some on the website of my favourite spice shop without success. The information about them seems somewhat questionable at times. How can you describe szechuan pepper without mentioning that it is actually the fruit around the tasteless seeds that are the spice?

Then, instead of pictures of the plants or uses of the spices, each is illustrated with an illustration out of Jones' "Grammar of Ornament". Now that is an excellent book. I own a reprint of it. But the illustrations seem out of place here.

I'm not going to bother finishing this. It's just very peculiar.… (mere)

Herbs! Grow! Cook! Heal! This lovely looking book is full of herbal knowledge. Each of these one hundred herbs gets a page devoted to them and the opposite page is a decorative modernist type art representation for that herb. Each herb has a short description of facts, and along the side of the page: tips on growing the herb in your house or garden, foods to pair the herb with, interesting ideas on how to try them, and any healing properties the herb offers. I learned a lot from this book, being an herb amateur. I was especially surprised to find out that bergamot is the bee-balm in my mother's garden... I learned many interesting things just from the bergamot page! The only thing I can complain about is not including a real-life picture of the plants on each page. It would have helped with identifying them.… (mere)