The Third Plate: Field Notes on a New Cuisine (paperback)

For years Chef Dan Barber has been advocating a return to locally sourced cuisine while earning acclaim for his food at NYC’s Blue Hill and, just outside the city, at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, part of a non-profit center devoted to promoting sustainable agriculture.

Here, in a friendly, thoughtful, and colorful narrative, he traces, through interactions with farmers, cooks, and diners around the US and around the world, his expanding understanding of the implications of such words as “local” and “sustainable”. Barber's willingness to take himself to task for not immediately considering all the implications of his ideals keeps his prose out of the realm of indignant manifesto and allows him to persuade through self-effacing charm.

Deftly written and very absorbing, this is quite persuasive. 

Paperback.