Canning isn’t just about putting food in jars and letting it sit and sit―it’s about sealing in the taste of each season and making food from scratch with more interesting and unique flavors. Farmer, restaurateur, and local food advocate, Jamie DeMent, offers her recipes and tricks for preserving fresh ingredients and interesting creations. Canning in the Modern Kitchen is ideal whether you’re a novice canner or an experienced cook on the hunt for new recipes and novel techniques. Her delicious recipes go beyond the obvious jams, marmalades, and jellies―the book includes ideas for sauces and unexpected ways to preserve produce and meat. She covers a variety of techniques, including basic water bath canning and oven canning, and lays out the equipment needed for successful canning. And, most importantly, she includes detailed safety information to make your canning journey as smooth as possible.
Jamie
DeMent was raised in Eastern North Carolina. As she saw
family farms disappearing and industrialized farming taking over, she searched
for ways to revive the simplicity of eating healthy, locally grown food. In
2001, after completing her degree in Southern History and African American
Studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, she became a
Legislative Aid for Representative Brad Miller on Capitol Hill, then was a
Director of Special Projects for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
where she supported fundraising efforts for the Nature Research Center.
DeMent left the Museum to join Richard Holcomb at Coon
Rock Farm. The couple also own Piedmont Restaurant in Durham, North Carolina,
and two additional food-related businesses, Bella Bean Organics and Heirloom
Provisions. Jamie’s days are spent writing about food and farming and planting,
harvesting, cooking and selling products from her farm.
Jamie’s first cookbook, The Farmhouse Chef: Recipes and Stories from My Carolina Farm, was
published in Fall 2017 by UNC Press. She is also a guest lecturer at UNC Chapel
Hill, North Carolina State University, Duke University, and teaches cooking
classes at A Southern Season in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Charleston,
South Carolina; at Whisk in Cary, North Carolina; at Charleston Cooks in
Charleston, South Carolina; and at The Art Institute of Charleston. Jamie was
named one of North Carolina’s “Outstanding Women in Business” in 2016 and 2017
by the Triangle Business Journal and
has had featured articles and recipes in The
Local Palate magazine.
The AJC Decatur Book Festival offers the Decatur Writers Studio: a learning and working resource for writers in the Atlanta area.
Click here to see a full list of past presenting authors at the AJC Decatur Book Festival.
