Good Enough to Eat: Hugh Acheson's The Broad Fork

The Broad Fork: Recipes for the Wide World of Vegetables and Fruits by Hugh Acheson, Photographs by Rinne Allen.

Acheson is partner and chef in the restaurants Five & Ten, The National, Cinco y Diez, and Empire State South (named restaurant of the year by Atlanta Magazine) and winner of two James Beard Awards -- for Best Chef Southeast and Best American Cookbook. You may also have seen him on Bravo’s Top Chef as a judge.

Now Acheson follows up his two prior books, A New Turn in the South and Pick a Pickle, with 200 recipes designed to make the most of what's local and available. The Broad Fork breaks produce down into four seasons and 50 ingredients, from kohlrabi to carrots, and beets to Brussels sprouts. Recipes range from quick presentations of fruits and vegetables -- apple butter in the fall, pickled blueberries in the summer -- to more elaborate dishes, such as snapper ceviche with apple and lime and raspberry cobbler with drop biscuits. The book is so well written that you'll enjoy paging through it even when you're not in the kitchen, but the best thing to come out of it may be a desire to eat more fresh produce.