My Bookstore

In the Stacks with Mother Linda

My Cookbooks

Bulgarian Rhapsody: The Best of Balkan Cuisine

In 1990, I spent six weeks in Bulgaria just as the country was emerging from 45 years of communist rule. For most of the time, I rented a room in the home of a wonderful Bulgarian woman named Tatyana in the town of Rousse, a beautiful city on the Danube. Everyday Tatyana made the most marvelous meals for me and I started standing over her and writing some of the recipes down.

I quickly learned that the trademarks of Bulgarian cuisine, like those of its Mediterranean cousins, are slow cooking and use of fresh vegetables. Its wonderful pastries have been influenced by the nearby Austro-Hungarians. Also, having endured 500 years under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire, Bulgarian cooks inherited the best of Turkish influences.

Ode to Sucanat: The First Sucanat Cookbook

I printed 5,000 copies of this book, I have almost sold out. I only have a few copies left, so now it's a collectible--and priced accordingly. In the beginning, Sucanat customers could buy it through an ad on the back of the Sucanat can. (Yes, Sucanat used to come in a can.) Boy, that was a long time ago.

In September 1998, the Wholesome Foods brand and Sucanat were sold to Imperial Holly of Sugar Land, Texas, one of largest sugar producers in the world. As of this writing, Imperial Holly has kept Wholesome Foods and the Sucanat brand in a separate division of Imperial Holly with its existing staff.