Did it occur to anyone else last Sunday, as you perused the newspaper insert for your local electronics superstore, that apparently overnight the most reliable and accessible (not to mention marketable) means of book-buying and book-reading became something that is battery-powered, does not have pages, and cannot be used to press flowers and four-leaf clovers?

You turn the advert’s pages (ironically?) from computers to televisions, from televisions to a two-page spread of competing eBook readers, portals into entire virtual libraries. The wonders of these little wizard tablets are well documented. But I’m talking about another phenomenon: that books have effectively elbowed their way back onto personal entertainment’s center stage, with t.v. and computers and gaming consules…by conforming to look exactly like them!

Clever disguise, books. You should write a spy novel, books.

Anyway, maybe you’ve decided to give a friend or loved one the gift of a Kindle Fire this holiday season. Good for you. I hope it lasts at least as long as the battery does, or until the next iteration of the device renders it obsolete.

But if you think that giving an eBook reader is like the lazy book person’s version of a gift card “to spend on whatever you like,” possibly you’re also in the hunt for a few real-book recommendations. In that case, thanks for continuing to read this post!

Allow the Countryman Press to guide you (virtually, ha!) through the aisles of your neighborhood chain or independent bookstore, with a few examples of printed matter—bound and essentially indestructible—that we think would make fine, thoughtful gifts this year.

New England Icons: Shaker Villages, Saltboxes, Stone Walls, and Steeples, by Bruce Irving, photographs by Greg Premru

A handsome little book perfect for anyone who lives in, loves, or just plain misses New England. New England Icons reveals the largely untold backstories and vibrancy of the things that make this region unlike any other. Bruce Irving, former producer of public television’s This Old House, offers a lively and engaging collection of short essays, with beautiful full-color photographs by Greg Premru, that tap into our collective consciousness and throw light onto the past and present of such not-so-common New England sights as village greens, icehouses, lobster boats, classic ski areas, roof walks, church steeples and more—symbols of enduring importance that remain full of life and character.

EatingWell One-Pot Meals, by Jessie Price and the EatingWell Test Kitchen

Shorter days, colder weather—winter has a way of tamping down spirits. And sometimes that breeds a lazy cook. I won’t go that far, but why else is the season synonymous with casserole, stew, roasts—meals made easily in one piece of cookery? Our friends at EatingWell magazine have 100 new recipes to get you through and keep you healthy this winter. In EatingWell One-Pot Meals, Jessie Price and her team of recipe testers and nutritionists overturn the notion that “one-pot” just means heavy, starchy stews. Instead, be amazed at the spectacular array of dishes that are as delicious as they are easy to prepare: Southwestern Chile-Cheese Casserole, Middle Eastern Lamb Stew, Jamaican Curried Shrimp & Mango Soup. I could go on. But you should see for yourself.

Willie Was Different: A Children’s Story, by Norman Rockwell

Norman Rockwell, the artist who invented the mystique of mid-20th-century, irrepressible small-town America, wrote just one work of fiction, and it was a children’s story, first published in McCall’s Magazine in 1967. Republished years later as a book, and now available from the Countryman Press, this edition is based on Rockwell’s original concept, complete with the color and monotone paintings he created for the story. And the story goes: Willie is a wood thrush—but a very different kind of wood thrush. Believing that he possesses a special genius, Willie leaves his avian fellows to take up singing with the exquisitely down-to-earth Miss Polly, flautist extraordinaire. Traveling all the way to the nation’s capitol to perform, together they find fame. But how does all the attention and bustle of city life take its toll on Willie and his special talent? Find out how Willie salvages his sense of tranquility and of beautiful music-making. And of course, you know the illustrations are spectacular.

The Soul of Vermont, by Richard Brown

On the 10th anniversary of our original publication of Richard Brown’s The Soul of Vermont, Countryman is re-releasing it in its original, elegant package: as a hardcover. It’s the best way we know how to extend the breathtaking and timeless wonder of this consummate collection of quintessential Vermont images. We may be Vermonters and a bit biased, but we’re pretty sure this book’s a classic.

For more than 40 years, Brown has been taking photographs of his beloved home state. These soulful images, taken throughout the seasons, create a distinctive, unforgettable photographic portrait of Vermont’s landscape and its people. He chronicles with great affection those who live and work on the land, and without sentimentality celebrates a rapidly disappearing way of life.

~Tom

Cookbooks, not just recipe digests anymore, are often as fond of storytelling as the next heartfelt memoir headed to bestsellerdom. (Incidentally, in either category, if you want to make it big, travel to/buy an abandoned villa in/spend a summer roaming/be from Tuscany.) But how many cookbooks are equally storybooks, whose plots and characters are as crucial to the experience as the flour and eggs?

The Sweets of Araby: Enchanted Recipes from the Tales of the 1,001 Arabian Nights, by (sisters) Muna Salloum and Leila Salloum Elias, illustrated by Linda Dalal Sawaya, is that rather brilliant hybrid, and it invokes a time, whether true or imagined, when books were the transference of oral traditions, of age-old stories finally grounded in ink; and a time when hands clutching the finest paintbrushes elevated the text with such dazzling borders and meticulous illustrations as to please the sternest sultan (think Orhan Pamuk’s My Name Is Red). Through the vehicle of 25 of those universally known Tales of the Arabian Nights, the Salloums and Sawaya have painstakingly created a world rife with seduction, rich colors, flavors and aromas.

And the story of the labor of love that became The Sweets of Araby is itself worth the telling—and tasting.

Unearthing the Sweets

Mac mul min al-Tamr (stuffed dates, batter-fried)

On a mission to trace the origins and history of the desserts of their ancestral culture, Muna and Leila, both scholars of Middle East and Islamic Studies, knew they had unearthed treasure when they came across a repository of 10^th-century Arab culinary manuscripts.

Third-generation Canadians, Muna and Leila have since childhood delighted in the sweets of the old-country tradition, thanks to their mother and father’s inherited passion for the flavors of Arab cooking. Over the years, their love of the exquisite foods that flowed magically from their kitchen grew into an immense curiosity. How were these delicacies made? Of course, when mother and father and even distant relatives from Damascus refused to divulge recipe “family secrets”—handed down over generations—the sisters vowed to find out for themselves.

What they found in those medieval Arabic texts, to their amazement, were detailed recipes, procedures, and preparatory instructions for making desserts. Indeed, these were the legendary sweets of ancient Baghdadi society, the culture from which were spun, as it happens, the timeless tales of the 1,001 Arabian nights!

Remaking the Sweets

In the course of translating the recipes and actually trying them, it was quickly evident that units of measurement needed to be adjusted—“some cloves” or “as much as you wish of a good quality white honey” wouldn’t cut it. So, cue that montage of failed attempts, the close-but-still-needs-something redos, till out comes the golden, glistening sweet in the very image of the ancestral bakers.

Natif (peanut brittle done Arably)

And then? Well, taste of them, obviously! But Muna and Leila, wisely, didn’t rely on their palates alone to determine each sweet’s authenticity, accuracy, its kinship with the modern variation they grew up on. They called on their friends, a rather ferociously devoted group of women in Toronto who gathered on several occasions to test them all. Representing all parts of the Arab sphere, they argued over differences between each country’s spin on a particular dessert. Verdicts were rendered; verdicts opposed each other. Muna and Leila fought some, conceded to others. In the end, all passions lovingly voiced, they had a collection of old/new recipes that most everyone could get behind.

And the recipes? Start with the all-purpose, rosewater-infused simple syrup, Qatar. And there’s the Arab blueprint for the sweet that evolved into baklava, called Kunafah. And what is perhaps the original donut hole, spiced and lightly fried balls of dough called Luqum al-Qadi. There’s Natif, a peanut brittle of pistachios and almonds. And Mac mul min al-Tamr, which is a date stuffed with pistachios and cloves, battered and deep-fried, then dipped in Qatar. Just to name a few!

The Art of Araby

A manuscript of classic tales intermingling a collection of classic recipes, as it turns out, is only half of the charm of The Sweets of Araby. With just its words, we’re treated intellectually, perhaps, and gastronomically. But overlay the book with Linda Dalal Sawaya’s page-by-page, handmade, full-color illustrations—a mosaic of bright reds and blues and greens, depicting scenes in each tale, the plates of sweets, the traditional borders that hold every flavor in—and it’s suddenly an absolute one-of-a-kind, a work of art from end to end.

May you be royally seduced by The Sweets of Araby.

~Tom

source: laurensmith700's Flickr photostream

It figures that the coldest, darkest time of year (for we New Englanders, at least) is when we’ve decided to publish a slew of new Explorer’s Guides to some of the most gorgeously warm, coastlined, be-palm-treed places on Earth—and all within a time zone or two!

Granted, some would rather be climbing latitudes and elevations, up and down black diamond runs in Utah (and we’ve got you covered if you are). And that’s fine. Knock yourself out. (Not literally.)

As for the rest of us, daydreaming closer to the equator…

No need spinning a globe (do people still have globes?) and blindly placing your finger in the middle of the Pacific…or committing yourself to Yakutsk, Siberia, only the coldest city on the globe. We’ve mapped out your options (see below).

We are your source to some of the best of most-exotic Central America.

Seriously, consider the luscious coves and unspoiled rain forests, the volcanoes and radiant wildlife, the sultry cultures and rich histories on the virtually endless Latin isthmus. We’re proud to have just published the most up-to-date guides anywhere on Panama, Belize, Southwest Nicaragua (including Granada and San Juan del Sur), El Salvador, and Acapulco.

This here handy Google map is yours. And if you go to any of these paradises, add your photos to the map! We’d love to share in your travels, and actually welcome you rubbing our frost-bitten faces in it.

~Tom

Chances are, though, the menu plan for holiday supper is still totally up in the air. There’s still time! And maybe food-court dining for the umpteenth time in four weeks has persuaded you to, well, purify the ingredients for the spirited occasion.

Relax: we’ve got you covered. Our cookbooks with EatingWell and King Arthur Flour have always exemplified our belief in cooking with wholesome, chemically un-messed-with, easily accessible ingredients. And our newest cookbook author, a kindly monk named Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette, believes these qualities in a meal to be most sacred. The Pure Joy of Monastery Cooking is a generous offering of meatless recipes (egg- and dairy-friendly) that, as Brother Victor says, “exalt the values of health, freshness and nutrition.”

In other words, Brother Victor’s (did we say) gorgeously illustrated new cookbook, riding on his international reputation for classics like 12 Months of Monastery Soups and From a Monastery Kitchen, is your soul-cleansing holiday supper solution. The heart is inherent in these dishes, coming as they are from the resident monk—who also happens to create his own vinegars—at Our Lady of the Resurrection Monastery in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Give the gift of good food! Here’s a main dish everyone’s sure to love, stamped with Brother Victor’s blessing:

Acorn Squash-Mushroom Lasagna

Makes 8 servings

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter

2 cups chopped onions

1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced (about 3 cups)

Salt & freshly ground pepper

2 pounds, acorn squash, peeled, seeded, & cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices

1 (14-ounce) can vegetable stock

4 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

4 tablespoons chopped fresh sage

3 (15-ounce) containers whole-milk ricotta cheese

4 cups grated mozzarella cheese

2 cups grated Parmesan cheese

3 large eggs

Olive oil, for brushing pan

1 (9-ounce) package no-boil lasagna noodles

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Melt the butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and sauté until soft, about 8 minutes. Raise the heat to high, add the mushrooms, and cook until tender, stirring constantly, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.

2. Place in same skillet the squash, stock, and 3 tablespoons each of the thyme and sage. Cover and simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes, or until the squash is just tender. Uncover and cook until squash is very soft but still retains its shape. about 5 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Mix the ricotta, 2 cups of the mozzarella cheese, 1 1/2 cups of the Parmesan, and the remaining 1 tablespoon each of the thyme and sage in a large bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper; mix in eggs.

4. Brush a 13 x 9 x 2-inch glass baking dish with the oil. Spread 1 cup of the ricotta mixture over the bottom. Arrange three noodles on top. Spread 1 1/4 cups of the Ricotta mixture over the noodles. Arrange 1 1/3 cups of the squash mixture over that, and sprinkle with half the mushrooms and 1 cup of the remaining mozzarella. Top with three noodles, then with 1 3/4 cups ricotta mixture, the remaining squash, and the remaining mushrooms. Top with three noodles. Spread remaining ricotta mixture on top and sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan. Cover with oiled foil.

5. Bake the lasagna, covered, for 35 minutes. Uncover and bake until heated through, about 25 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Never heard of it either?

Let Jessie’s education be our own: a proper hotdish “should include meat of some sort, a starch (potatoes, rice or noodles are common), a bit of vegetable (frozen or canned, preferably, for ease) and a binder, which is typically a creamy soup, such as cream of mushroom.”

And the most commonly whipped-up version, according to her Minnesotan relative, is (wait for it) “Tater Tot hotdish—ground beef with cream of mushroom soup, perhaps some frozen green beans or peas and then a layer of Tater Tots on top.”

Go ahead and take a moment. Let that sink in…to your arteries?

If you haven’t already run off to search hotdish recipes to try, we do recommend Jessie’s, um, leaner and—we’re gonna say it—tastier take on the timeless casserole, which you’ll find if you click on the picture:

image courtesy of eatingwell.com

And since we put you in a warmer, healthier state of mind; and since it’s holiday-shopping time; and since we know you’re looking for one of this season’s best cookbooks to give, you owe it to yourself and to those you love to give a copy of The Simple Art of EatingWell Cookbook, on-sale next week!

An op-ed in the Burlington Free Press yesterday has roused quite the “civil discourse” among commenters—the internet version of country-store gossip leading to pitchforks and torches down Main Street.

The column belongs to Rob Williams, editor of Vermont Commons: Voice of Independence, a journal and website advocating (what you may or may not call) progressive platforms such as localism and government decentralization, chiefly to do with Vermont’s own self-reliance and, if Mr. Williams succeeds, the state’s eventual secession from these United States.

But maybe whole-state secession isn’t the right solution. What about inter-state secession? Those of us who live in the VT/NH borderland known as the Upper Connecticut River Valley (or, just “Upper Valley,” if you’re local) could easily identify with a Republic of Verhampshire (“Live Free fer Damn Sure”?) that finally puts to rest those vital disagreements over whose hiking trails have better lookouts onto whose mountains. Because at umpteen-hundred feet, it’s all the beautiful same!

We wouldn’t have been the first inter-state to try this, though. In fact, as we were reading up on to-see-and-do in southern Oregon (in, ahem, our new 3rd edition of Oregon: An Explorer’s Guide), we found out about a movement begun in 1941 by a group of residents in northern California and southwestern Oregon who “were fed up with their respective legislatures’ unfulfilled promises to improve roads (which were indeed abysmal) through the area.” Because timber and minerals (e.g. “thar be gold”) were untrade-able without transport, they decided to take matters into their own hands. They drew up the paperwork, seceded, and formed the State of Jefferson. Author Denise Fainberg describes the transition of power:

Every Thursday they would “secede” from the Union. Border controls were set up in Yreka (CA), where motorists received pamphlets about the movement.

All right, obviously Jefferson didn’t quite succeed at seceding…unless you believe a current website devoted to the still-active movement and Jefferson’s very own NPR affiliate are sure signs of legitimacy. We’re not so…unsure, ourselves.

I’m here to tell you that it does. But don’t take my word for it. Take the forest’s. And the birds’ and deer’s. Remember, nature isn’t apart from earth’s so-called “events” that we like to take credit for knowing about—say, before the big snowstorm (“s’posed to dump ten inches”) hits. Nature invented them. And nature knows loads more about its history than we do, more than we see or hear on a daily basis.

Which isn’t to say we can’t uncover our natural environment’s colorful past. It takes an empathic pair of eyes, a nose for the peculiar lays of the land, and of course the expert guidance of someone who’s been at it for quite some time. I’m talking about Tom Wessels, the man who 10 years ago first showed us how truly to see the forest for the trees, when we published his Reading the Forested Landscape.

Wessels’ panorama of the forest picks up and analyzes clues that can explain the many, often dramatic changes the landscape experiences over tens, hundreds, even thousands of years. How to tell if a fire once swept through these woods? Was it once open farmland? How to know whether a blight took hold of species and brought it down? What, O, whatever happened to the American chestnut?

Reading the Forested Landscape is an excellent read (hearthside, with a tumbler of oak-y bourbon?), but not the kind of thing you’d stow in the satchel as you head out for some sleuthing of your own. So Wessels wrote the field guide. Forest Forensics fits in the back pocket, full of color photos to aid your research, a glossary of terms, and quick-reference charts.

Let’s have a look at the evidence, shall we?

(L) To bear the scars of a forest fire, and live to tell about it. (R) What remains of the great American chestnut, blighted by fungus.

If a late-autumn, Novembered woods is anything, it’s perfect for letting lots of light in. So get out into it. You might solve a mystery as old as the dirt itself.

Welcome back to the eponymous blog of Vermont’s original name in publishing. We’ve been away a while; we have no (good) excuses.

But we’re back, totally redesigned, rejuvenated, excited to share with you all the backcountry-bookish things we’ve been up to in Woodstock, VT.

First, let’s bring you up to speed. In its latest, uninterrupted incarnation, The Countryman Press just turned 37. Back in 1973, Peter and Jane Jennison lovingly resuscitated the name of a tiny Vermont publisher that had begun in 1936. Countryman owes its humble origins to a man named Vrest Orton of Weston, VT, who, on a letterpress in his own barn, printed limited edition short books by the likes of Edgar Lee Masters and Stephen Vincent Benet.

Countryman soon expanded its offerings, publishing books on country crafts and cooking, elegantly produced hunting and fishing titles, and photo albums in conjunction with Vermont Life Magazine. The Press we know today was beginning to take shape…but, well, as it happens, Orton decided to move on to other legendary pursuits. By the mid-’60s, Countryman lay dormant, and remained so for a decade, until 1973.

Ye shall know us by a circumscribed tree.

Fast forward to present day, through sale of the Press to W. W. Norton & Co. in 1996, and Countryman’s name reaches far beyond Vermont’s borders. Our signature travel series, Explorer’s Guides, which began 30 years ago with Christina Tree’s guide to Maine (now in its 15th edition), encompasses destinations throughout the United States and Latin America. Our 50 Hikes series is just as expansive. So is our newer, fast-growing, trip-ready collection of Backroads & Byways titles.

We have the honor of publishing the cookbooks of fellow Vermonters, EatingWell Magazine and The King Arthur Flour Company, which have garnered an embarrassment of awards and award nominations over the years.

All of the above and a good deal more…though let’s cut this dissertation short. Let’s talk about right now. Fall is fallen, winter shoulders in–and we think you’ll find something you like in our new catalog. Garden-fresh recipes from a monk? New reasons to book a trip to Panama or Belize? Hiking trails in Alabama that may blow your mind? It’s all right here: