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Dishing Up New Jersey brings you the garden state on a plate. Yum!

By on June 24, 2017

Dishing Up New Jersey
The reason I bought my house in New Jersey was because the back yard was waist deep in weeds. I knew what that meant. Good soil. And that means a great garden. And thus I came to understand why Jersey is called The Garden State.
It’s called a lot of other things too – as my Jersey grand children came to understand when they went out of state for school conferences. What, you ask? Lily said it best. “Gama, we’re loud and we’re proud.”
But only after a few growing seasons here did I come to fully appreciate New Jersey’s true gift. Food, grown here, nurtured here, and cooked here by a true melting pot of folks who moved here from all over the world.
As the most densely populated state in the nation, you don’t have to go far to find another hidden treasure – often in a diner or roadside café. New Jersey is like that.
Lucky for us, John Holl, native New Jersey author who has criss-crossed the state in search of the next best thing, and has written a book about it. Dishing Up New Jersey, 150 Recipes from the Garden State.
This amply illustrated book both shows and tells you where the good stuff is.

From Sussex County to Cape May, Holl found the best recipes New Jersey has to offer, and the result is this rich and unique cookbook celebrating the foods, flavors, cultures, and traditions of the Garden State.

These 150 recipes include dishes featuring New Jersey’s own produce — tomatoes, corn, cranberries, blueberries, apples — along with deep-fried boardwalk treats, late-night diner bites, and recipes contributed by casinos, bison and dairy farms, food trucks, old-school delis, famous bakeries, and more. You’ll find Pork Roll Surprise, Cucumber Gazpacho, Ukrainian Holubtsi, Funnel Cake at Home, Tomato and Onion Salad, Jersey Green Clam Chowder, Sunday Gravy, Saltwater Taffy, Traditional Amish Chili, Classic Lawrenceville Mac & Cheese, Jersey Disco Fries, Fresh Jersey Corn Cakes, Honey Thyme Caramel, Black and Blue Cobbler — and a classic Taylor Ham, Egg, and Cheese Sandwich. Beautifully photographed, this collection is the ultimate tribute to New Jersey’s best.

It’s all here for you. My only problem is trying to decide where to keep this delicious cookbook: in the kitchen or in the car. Get out and see New Jersey and you’ll soon know why it’s called The Garden State and you will join the fans of John Holl, to whom we say, thank you.

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About Linda Eckhardt

Linda West Eckhardt, is an award winning journalist, food writer, and nutritionist. Her more than 20 cookbooks have garnered prizes including the James Beard prize for the best cookbook for a text she wrote with her daughter, Katherine West DeFoyd, entitled Entertaining 101, Doubleday. Their follow-up book, Stylish One Dish Dinners, Doubleday, was also nominated for a James Beard prize. Their next book, The High Protein Cookbook, Clarkson Potter, remains a best seller after 12 years. That book was designed to accompany low carb diet plans. Her ground-breaking book, Bread in Half The Time, Broadway Books, was named the Best Cookbook in America by the prestigious IACP, The Julia Child award. Her award winning radio work with Jennifer English, for a national show on the Food and Wine radio network, was nominated for a James Beard Prize for a show called, “I Know What You Ate Last Summer.”