Harvest Recipes from an organic farm

Christine Stevens. Softcover with flaps. English. First edition. Jacana Media, 2009. Secondhand. 212pp.In a secret valley near Worcester, in the Western Cape, untouched by pollution and city rush lies a farm so heart-achingly beautiful it will compel you to reassess what life is really about. If the view doesn't mesmerise you, the lifestyle of organic farmers Christine and Mark Stevens and their two sons will get you thinking. Beyond the obvious meaning in the title, Harvest is a cookbook about reaping what you sow in life. Christine's decision to leave the city and a hectic corporate career behind has rewarded her with a quality of life for her family that you can only envy. The root of it is feeding two very active boys and a busy husband. In Harvest, Christine shares not only her favourite recipes, but her passion for growing things and taking food straight from the garden or paddock into the kitchen. When she first arrived on the farm, she thought life would be all about slow-cooked meals and long lazy days, be she soon had to adjust to the reality of farm life. This meant that the way she cooked had to change too, to become more seasonal and a lot less fussy. Her recipes are a combination of quick (not fast) food using the best organic ingredients and slower, more indulgent meals using the best that her farm produces. She shares tricks for keeping the pantry full of things to keep hungry boys happy and to help get a healthy, delicious dinner on the table with the minimum of fuss. From baskets full of heirloom tomatoes and home-raised pork to bottles of their own organic wine, Harvest takes us into the kitchen of an organic farm to explore an organic lifestyle and its delicious benefits. The farm comes alive through the eyes of food and lifestyle photographer Russel Wasserfall. In his words: "The place is almost picture-perfect. Everywhere you look there's a postcard view. It's as if someone set out to design the perfect farm with which to lure city folk away from the big smoke.