Mikki 's Book'd Lists

Dirt: It's What's for Dinner

Created by Mikki - Updated on March 07^th 2023

How we treat the soil affects the nutrients, microbes, crop yields, and even aquatic food. Learn how to choose the healthiest food for you and the planet.

The Third Plate

Barber, Dan.

From the Publisher

The Third Plate is chef Dan Barber’s extraordinary vision for a new future of American eating. After more than a decade spent investigating farming communities around the world in pursuit of singular flavor, Barber finally concluded that, for the sake of our food, our health, and the future of the land, America’s cuisine required a radical transformation. The revelations Barber shares in The Third Plate took root in his restaurant’s kitchen. But his process of discovery took him far...

My Thoughts

"The Third Plate" will make you hungry for good food.

The hidden half of nature : the microbial roots of life and health

Montgomery, David R., 1961- author.

From the Publisher

"Prepare to set aside what you think you know about yourself and microbes. Good health--for people and for plants--depends on Earth's smallest creatures. [This book] tells the story of our tangled relationship with microbes and their potential to revolutionize agriculture and medicine, from garden to gut"--Dust jacket flap.

My Thoughts

This MacArthur Genius Fellowshiop award winner writes clearly and engagingly.

Cooked : a natural history of transformation

Pollan, Michael.

From the Publisher

In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements?fire, water, air, and earth?to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan's effort to master a single...

My Thoughts

Pollan finds ways to make food ever more interesting and adds a philosophical flavor.

Entangled life : how fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures

Sheldrake, Merlin, author.

From the Publisher

"Living at the border between life and non-life, fungi use diverse cocktails of potent enzymes and acids to disassemble some of the most stubborn substances on the planet, turning rock into soil and wood into compost, allowing plants to grow. Fungi not only help create soil, they send out networks of tubes that enmesh roots and link plants together in the "Wood Wide Web." Fungi also drive many long-standing human fascinations: from yeasts that cause bread to rise and orchestrate the...

My Thoughts

Sheldrake writes engagingly about fungi, what we know about humans in relation to them, and recent discoveries about lichen and fungi. It is mind blowing.

The living forest : a visual journey into the heart of the woods

Maloof, Joan, 1956- author.

From the Publisher

The Living Forest is a visual journey that immerses you deep into the woods. The wide-ranging photography by Robert Llewellyn celebrates the small and the large, the living and the dead, and the seen and the unseen. You'll discover close-up images of owls, hawks, and turtles; aerial photographs that show herons in flight; and time-lapse imagery that reveals the slow change of leaves. In an ideal blend of art and scholarship, the 300 awe-inspiring photographs are supported by lyrical essays from...

My Thoughts

Lowman chronicles her love of plants from childhood to the current day successes she has had in creating ways to observe trees' canopies. It is a tale of passion, ingenuity, determination, common sense, and adaptability that leads to our learning more about trees.