All across the country, farmers markets and CSA programs are gaining popularity. This year my boyfriend and I are splitting a CSA share with a friend of ours and I try to get to at least one farmers market a week. However, I often come home with bags overflowing with food, only to be confronted with the challenge of how to best use these new fruits and veggies. While many are old friends, I've frequently found myself purchasing kohlrabi or foot long Chinese beans without any clue as to how to prepare them. Luckily, Deborah Madison has stepped up with a beautiful book called Local Flavors that often bridges my personal knowledge gap.

Madison opens up the book with a introduction that describes the journey she's been on for many years now, visiting and sampling farmers markets from all over the country. Madison presents information from farmers, market managers and others who are involved in local growing, talking about the ways in which buying food directly from the people who produced it is a huge boon to your local economy. Just before heading into the recipes, she offers ten market tips that are great for people for whom shopping at farmers markets can be a little intimidating.

The recipes included in this book are, for the most part, both deeply simple and totally delicious sounding. Madison demonstrates how if you are using fresh, seasonal food, you don't have to put energy into covering up flavors. Instead, you can add little touches to bring out the inherent goodness of what you have, making meal prep so much easier. One recipe that leaped off the page at me was the one for Spaghetti with Overgrown Arugula and Sheep's Milk Ricotta. The arugula that's been showing up in my CSA share has been getting larger and leggier with each week and this seems like an amazing way to use it up.

If you are a devoted farmers market shopper who is in need of a little inspiration, this would be an excellent cookbook to add to your collection. Same goes for those newer CSA members who keep receiving veggies that were previously unknown to them. Deborah Madison has created a beautiful cookbook that will be of use for years to come.