New on the Shelves at Albert Wisner Public Library: Cooking and Home DIY

In a career spanning fame and activism, Pamela Anderson has ventured from a humble upbringing to the forefront of Hollywood, and has always been a passionate cook and gardener. Now, she invites you into her kitchen to share 80 delicious recipes that nourish the soul. This cookbook began as a box of recipe cards: a housewarming gift for her sons inspired by homegrown traditions and world travel. It grew to become her gift to you, showing how romantic, comforting, and indulgent it can be to cook only with vegetables. At Pamela's down-to-earth fairy kingdom on Vancouver Island, you'll join her on the dock for chicory dandelion coffee and whipped cranberry porridge, for picnics in the forest with a green goddess mason jar salad and tomato galette, and at the dinner table for her anti-inflammatory lentil soup, minty pea-potato pierogis, and more. She also shares her love affair with bread, from maple-glazed cinnamon rolls to rustic sourdough loaves and fougasse dipped in herby pistou, alongside insights into life, love, entertaining guests, and preserving nature's bounty.

Award-winning garden designer Leslie Bennett creates gardens filled with stunning layers of color and texture. Featuring practical how-to information alongside examples from nineteen gardens, Bennett shows how to incorporate personal and edible elements into the landscape to honor a variety of cultures, while including families of all shapes and sizes, to create space that nurtures self, community, and more. For example, the team designed a garden for the cofounder of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation to showcase art from emerging Black artists, while for a vegan chef's garden, they incorporated unusual vegetables that can't be found in grocery stores. A garden for a daughter of diplomats reflects the many places she's lived around the world; for a family that wants to beautify their neighborhood, they designed a vibrant community-oriented front yard. With chapters on floral, edible, gathering, healing, and cultural wonderlands, Bennett provides advice for tailoring a garden to your own needs, whether it's a place to host elegant garden parties, for children to play, to grow your own food and creativity, or a sanctuary to rest and relax. In “Garden Wonderland,” Bennett helps you unlock the potential of your garden to become a space of inspiring natural beauty, abundance, connection, and belonging.

Drawing on a lifetime of organic gardening, Barbara Damrosch collects her lessons learned and wisdom gained into an easy-to-read-and-enjoy overview of kitchen gardening. For the new gardener, there is encouragement on top of nuts-and-bolts advice. For every gardener, there is inspiration to face the challenges inherent in a life deeply rooted in and fed from the garden: In “A Life in the Garden,” horticultural icon Barbara Damrosch imparts a lifetime of wisdom on growing food for herself and her family. In writing that's accessible, engaging, and elegant, she welcomes us to garden alongside her. Personal, thoughtful, and often humorous, this book offers practical DIY insights that will delight gardeners, cooks, and small-scale farmers. With a personal and sometimes irreverent tone, Barbara expresses the pleasure she takes in gardening, the sense of empowerment she finds in it, and the importance of a partnership with the real expert: nature.

Food Network star Alex Guarnaschelli may be a French-trained chef, an Iron Chef, and a short-order-chef to her daughter, Ava, but at her core, she's an Italian American home cook. Her mom's heritage was Sicilian and her dad's people were from Bari; she pledged allegiance to her father's marinara on weekdays and to her mom's on the weekend and grew up eating at many of the red-checked-tablecloth trattorias throughout New York City. She still stops in to chitchat with the shop owners in Little Italy, where she buys the milkiest fresh mozz, the most thinly sliced prosciutto, and the crunchiest biscotti. These are the recipes that are favorites for so many of us, whether your family is from Italy or not. From Fettuccine Alfredo, Whole Chicken alla Diavola, and Carmella Soprano's Lasagna (yes, that Carmella Soprano) to Stuffed Artichokes so big and bursting that they're a main course unto themselves, these 120 recipes and 115 stunning photos are a celebration of garlic and tomatoes, Parmesan, pesto, and all the meatballs, sausages, and tiramisu in between. There are both simple weeknight suppers and slowly simmered Sunday sauces, and they represent the food we make to celebrate, commiserate, and just to be - it's Italian, it's American, it's all of us.

In five knockout chapters covering Midweek Meals, Weekend Wins, Reliable Roasting Pans, Pantry Love and Delicious Desserts, Jamie has produced a cookbook that will fit seamlessly into your life. “Simply Jamie” exists to inspire you to get cooking - it's full of delicious, achievable recipes you'll love to make. Whatever your needs, you can trust that these tried and tested recipes will slot right into the rhythms of your week - from 20-minute-to-table dishes and no-time-to-shop pantry rescues to weekend wins that create smart leftover ideas, meaning mealtimes are simple in the days that follow. Recipes include: Jarred Pepper Pasta, Roasted Veg with Camembert Fondue, Batch-It-Up Bolognese, Gochujang Chicken Noodle Bake, 8 Cool Ways With Salmon, Smash Burger, Spicy Paneer & Veg Squash Bake, Pantry Raid Fishcakes, Hot & Crispy Ice Cream Parcel, and Epic Sticky Toffee Pudding. This is a book about inspiration and bringing joy back into the kitchen.