Boston Flora

Tag: Porter Square Books

  • Friday, July 24, 7:00 pm – Unprocessed

    In the tradition of Michael Pollan’s bestselling In Defense of Food comes this remarkable chronicle, from a founding editor of Edible Baja Arizona, of a young woman’s year-long journey of eating only whole, unprocessed foods–intertwined with a journalistic exploration of what “unprocessed” really means, why it matters, and how to afford it.

    In January of 2012, Megan Kimble was a twenty-six-year-old living in a small apartment without even a garden plot to her name. But she cared about where food came from, how it was made, and what it did to her body: so she decided to go an entire year without eating processed foods. Unprocessed is the narrative of Megan’s extraordinary year, in which she milled wheat, extracted salt from the sea, milked a goat, slaughtered a sheep, and more–all while earning an income that fell well below the federal poverty line.

    What makes a food processed? As Megan would soon realize, the answer to that question went far beyond cutting out snacks and sodas, and became a fascinating journey through America’s food system, past and present. She learned how wheat became white; how fresh produce was globalized and animals industrialized. But she also discovered that in daily life, as she attempted to balance her project with a normal social life–which included dating–the question of what made a food processed was inextricably tied to gender and economy, politics and money, work and play.

    Backed by extensive research and wide-ranging interviews–and including tips on how to ditch processed food and transition to a real-food lifestyle–Unprocessed offers provocative insights not only on the process of food, but also the processes that shape our habits, communities, and day-to-day lives.

    Megan Kimble is a food writer living in Tucson, Arizona, and the managing editor of Edible Baja Arizona, a local foods magazine serving Tucson and the borderlands. She will appear at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, on Friday, July 24 at 7 pm for a talk and book signing. For more information visit http://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/megan-kimble-unprocessed.

  • Monday, May 18, 7:00 pm – Project Puffin

    Project Puffin is the inspiring story of how a beloved seabird was restored to long-abandoned nesting colonies off the Maine coast. As a young ornithology instructor at the Hog Island Audubon Camp, Dr. Stephen W. Kress learned that puffins had nested on nearby islands until extirpated by hunters in the late 1800s. To right this environmental wrong, he resolved to bring puffins back to one such island—Eastern Egg Rock. Yet bringing the plan to reality meant convincing skeptics, finding resources, and inventing restoration methods at a time when many believed in “letting nature take its course.”

    Today, Project Puffin has restored more than 1,000 puffin pairs to three Maine islands. But even more exciting, techniques developed during the project have helped to restore rare and endangered seabirds worldwide. Further, reestablished puffins now serve as a window into the effects of climate change. The success of Dr. Kress’s project offers hope that people can restore lost wildlife populations and the habitats that support them. The need for such inspiration has never been greater.

    Derrick Z. Jackson, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary and an accomplished photographer, is an associate editor and editorial board member of the Boston Globe. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and will speak on Project Puffin at Porter Square Books on Monday, May 18 beginning at 7 pm. For more information visit http://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/derrick-z-jackson-project-puffin.

  • Wednesday, March 4, 7:00 pm – Unnatural Selection

    Join author Emily Monosson at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street (Porter Square Shopping Center in Cambridge) on Wednesday, March 4 at 7 pm for a discussion on her latest book Unnatural Selection: How We are Changing Life, Gene by Gene.

    Gonorrhea. Bed bugs. Weeds. Salamanders. People. All are evolving, some surprisingly rapidly, in response to our chemical age. In Unnatural Selection, Emily Monosson shows how our drugs, pesticides, and pollution are exerting intense selection pressure on all manner of species. And we humans might not like the result.  Monosson reveals that the very code of life is more fluid than once imagined. When our powerful chemicals put the pressure on to evolve or die, beneficial traits can sweep rapidly through a population. Species with explosive population growth — the bugs, bacteria, and weeds — tend to thrive, while bigger, slower-to-reproduce creatures, like ourselves, are more likely to succumb.

    Monosson explores contemporary evolution in all its guises. She examines the species that we are actively trying to beat back, from agricultural pests to life-threatening bacteria, and those that are collateral damage — creatures struggling to adapt to a polluted world. Monosson also presents cutting-edge science on gene expression, showing how environmental stressors are leaving their mark on plants, animals, and possibly humans for generations to come.

    Unnatural Selection is eye-opening and more than a little disquieting. But it also suggests how we might lessen our impact: manage pests without creating super bugs; protect individuals from disease without inviting epidemics; and benefit from technology without threatening the health of our children.

    Emily Monosson is an environmental toxicologist, writer, and consultant. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, author of Evolution in a Toxic World: How Life Responds to Chemical Threats, and editor of Motherhood: The Elephant in the Laboratory.

    For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com.

  • Thursday, February 26, 7:00 pm – Back to the Garden

    Porter Square Books will host author James H. S. McGregor on Thursday, February 26 beginning at 7 pm, who will talk about his new book Back to the Garden: Nature and the Mediterranean World from Prehistory to the Present. The book will be available for purchase and signing.

    The garden was the cultural foundation of the early Mediterranean peoples; they acknowledged their reliance on and kinship to the land, and they understood nature through the lens of their diversely cultivated landscape. Their image of the garden underwrote the biblical book of Genesis and the region’s three major religions.

    In this important melding of cultural and ecological histories, James McGregor suggests that the environmental crisis the world faces today is a result of Western society’s abandonment of the “First Nature” principle — of the harmonious interrelationship of human communities and the natural world. The author demonstrates how this relationship, which persisted for millennia, effectively came to an end in the late eighteenth century, when “nature” came to be equated with untamed landscape devoid of human intervention. McGregor’s essential work offers a new understanding of environmental accountability while proposing that recovering the original vision of ourselves, not as antagonists of nature but as cultivators of a biological world to which we innately belong, is possible through proven techniques of the past.

    James H. S. McGregor is the author of five books on world cities. He is emeritus professor of comparative literature at the University of Georgia and lives in Cambridge, MA. The event is free and the book store is located in the Porter Square Shopping Center, 25 White Street in Cambridge.  For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com.

  • Thursday, January 22, 7:00 pm – Apples of New England

    Porter Square Books, located in the Porter Square Shopping Center at 25 White Street in Cambridge, will host Russell Steven Powell on Thursday, January 22, beginning at 7 pm, who will speak about his new book Apples of New England. This fascinating and helpful guide will offer practical advice about rare heirlooms and newly discovered varieties, chapters on the rich tradition of apple growing in New England and on the fathers of American apples Massachusetts natives John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) and Henry David Thoreau. Apples of New England will present the apple in all its splendor: as biological wonder, super food, work of art, and cultural icon.

    Apples of New England will also be an indispensable resource for anyone identifying apples in New England orchards, farm stands, grocery stores or their own backyard. Photographs of the more than 200 apples discovered, grown, or sold in New England will be accompanied by notes about flavor and texture, history, ripening time, storage quality, and best use.

    Russell Steven Powell has worked for the apple industry for nearly 20 years, most of that time as executive director of the nonprofit New England Apple Association. As its senior writer, he currently writes the weblog newenglandorchards.org.

    In addition to his two books about apples, Apples of New England (Countryman Press, 2014) and America’s Apple (Brook Hollow Press, 2012), Powell was founding editor and publisher of New England Watershed Magazine, named Best New Publication of 2006 by the Utne Reader. He produced and directed Shack Time (2001), an award-winning video documentary program about the artist shacks in the dunes of the Cape Cod National Seashore. His oil paintings and prints were exhibited in New York City and Cape Cod in 2014.

    A native of New England, he lives in western Massachusetts.  For more information about this lecture and book signing visit www.portersquarebooks.com.

  • Wednesday, October 8, 6:30 pm – Kale, Glorious Kale

    With the guidance of bestselling cookbook author Cathy Walthers and the stunning photography of Alison Shaw, every home cook can explore the multitude of ways this most healthy of foods can be made into delectable and satisfying meals. From Baked Eggs Over Kale in the morning to kale snacks and appetizers, salads, soups, side dishes and main courses like Pork Braised with Kale and Cider for dinner, Kale, Glorious Kale will be your complete guide to the greatest of green vegetables.

    Catherine Walthers is an award-winning journalist and food writer. She has worked for the past 15 years as a private chef and cooking instructor in the Boston area and on Martha’s Vineyard. She is food editor of Martha’s Vineyard Magazine, and the author of Raising the Salad Bar, as well as co-author of Greens, Glorious Greens.

    This event takes place at Kickstand Cafe, 594 Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington. Porter Square Books in Cambridge is  delighted to partner with Kickstand, cousin to Cafe Zing here in the store. Watch for more PSB at the ‘Stand events in 2015!

  • Tuesday, September 30, 7:00 pm – The Book of Barely Imagined Beings

    From medieval bestiaries to Borges’s Book of Imaginary Beings, we’ve long been enchanted by extraordinary animals, be they terrifying three-headed dogs or asps impervious to a snake charmer’s song. But bestiaries are more than just zany zoology—they are artful attempts to convey broader beliefs about human beings and the natural order. Today, we no longer fear sea monsters or banshees. But from the infamous honey badger to the giant squid, animals continue to captivate us with the things they can do and the things they cannot, what we know about them and what we don’t.

    With The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Caspar Henderson offers readers a fascinating, beautifully produced modern-day menagerie. But whereas medieval bestiaries were often based on folklore and myth, the creatures that abound in Henderson’s book—from the axolotl to the zebrafish—are, with one exception, very much with us, albeit sometimes in depleted numbers. The Book of Barely Imagined Beings transports readers to a world of real creatures that seem as if they should be made up—that are somehow more astonishing than anything we might have imagined. The yeti crab, for example, uses its furry claws to farm the bacteria on which it feeds. The waterbear, meanwhile, is among nature’s “extreme survivors,” able to withstand a week unprotected in outer space. These and other strange and surprising species invite readers to reflect on what we value—or fail to value—and what we might change.

    Caspar Henderson is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in the Financial Times, the Independent, and New Scientist. He lives in Oxford, UK. He will appear at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, on Tuesday, September 30 at 7 pm. For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com.

  • Wednesday, August 27, 7:00 pm – Boston Beer: A History of Brewing in the Hub

    Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, will host Norman Miller, author of Boston Beer: A History of Brewing in the Hub, on Wednesday, August 27, beginning at 7 pm. Free, but please rsvp at www.portersquarebooks.com. 

    Since before Patriots like Paul Revere and Sam Adams fermented a revolution in smoky Beantown taverns, beer has been integral to the history of Boston. The city issued its first brewing license in 1630, and breweries like Haffenreffer Brewery and American Brewing Company quickly sprung up. This heady history took a turn for the worse when the American Temperance Movement championed prohibition, nearly wiping out all of the local breweries. In 1984, the amber liquid was revitalized as Jim Koch introduced Samuel Adams craft brews to the Hub and the nation. Shortly after, Harpoon Brewery emerged and became the largest brewery to make all its beers in New England. From the planning of the Boston Tea Party over a pint at Green Dragon Tavern to the renaissance of the burgeoning craft brewing scene, join author and “Beer Nut” Norman Miller as he savors the sudsy history of brewing in the Hub.

    Norman Miller grew up in the birthplace of Johnny Appleseed and plastic pink lawn flamingos: Leominster, Massachusetts. Despite being a late bloomer as a beer drinker, he has been writing the Beer Nut column for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts, and the GateHouse Media family of newspapers since 2006, as well as a blog of the same name.

    Currently, Norman lives in his childhood home in Leominster with his dog Foxy, his cats Trouble and Tweak and his prized possession, Beatrice the beer fridge, which is always stocked up with Boston beers.

  • Tuesday, August 12, 7:00 pm – Off the Leash: A Year at the Dog Park

    Porter Square Books at 25 White Street in Cambridge will host author Matthew Gilbert on Tuesday, August 12 beginning at 7 pm. Off the Leash is about the strange, wonderful, neurotic, and eccentric dog people who gather daily at Amory Park, overlooking Boston. And it’s about Matthew Gilbert’s transformation from dedicated homebody to joyful member of the dog park club: an oddball group of dog people with fur on their jackets and biscuits in their pockets. Gilbert, the TV critic at the Boston Globe, describes his reluctant journey into the park subculture, as the first-time dog owner of a yellow lab named Toby. Like so many Americans right now, he has been steeped in the virtual, digital world. At the park, though, amid the chaotic energy of dogs and people gathered in packs, he is unprotected by the screen and forced to let go. The dogs go off-leash, and so do the people.

    There is something eternal and deeply satisfying about both the group experience at the park and the simple pleasure of playing fetch with one’s canine companion in a large, green, open space. A charmingly written narrative that will appeal to anyone who has ever enjoyed watching a puppy scamper through a park, Off the Leash is a paean to dog lovers and their pets everywhere. (But especially the ones in the Boston area.)  Free, but sign up at www.portersquarebooks.com or by calling 617-491-2220.

  • Monday, July 7, 7:00 pm – Crafty Bastards

    Join Lauren Clark at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge on Monday, July 7 at 7 pm for a celebration of the New England tradition of brewing beer — complete with samples!

    The region that defined Yankee ingenuity has a beer heritage in keeping with its character. Brewing in New England goes back four centuries, beginning with the Pilgrims who dropped anchor in Plymouth because their supply of beer was running low. (After barely surviving the winter, they planted a crop of barley and soon brewed their first ale.) Making beer in New England hasn’t always been easy. Puritan housewives, Industrial Era beer moguls, and contemporary craft brewers alike have concocted humankind’s oldest beverage in the face of scarce ingredients, legal hurdles, and public indifference. But despite these challenges, beer continues to be a staple of New England life.

    With Crafty Bastards: Beer in New England from the Mayflower to Modern Day, Lauren Clark deepens our appreciation for the perfect pint. Giving voice to the inimitable Yankee spirit that allows New Englanders to faithfully produce some of the best beers in the nation, Clark invites readers to take a giant swig of brewing past and present.

    Lauren Clark is a journalist and former bartender and brewer. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, Jane, and Yankee Magazine. Clark is the founder of drinkboston.com, which was featured in several Boston newspapers and magazines, the Massachusetts Beverage Business Journal, and Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh.