A juicy two-volume cookbook set filled with time-tested recipes, gorgeous photographs, and fiery essays detailing the Bloodroot cooking and living philosophies. Organized by season and stressing organic and local foods, they are essential additions to your cookbook library.

Volume One is a collection of delicious vegetarian recipes with an extensive "cooking class" section based on popular classes taught at Bloodroot. It features perspectives on the current state of feminism; art, music, and literature recommendations; and thoughts on health and disease, among other fascinating essays.

Volume Two is completely vegan and opens with an essay on the merits of coconut milk and coconut oil in vegan cooking. This volume includes information on the ethics of veganism, as well as illuminating political essays and a list of the authors' favorite cookbooks. It is a fantastic collection of unique vegan recipes, including seasonal ice creams.

A thorough glossary in both books includes descriptions of the ethnic and natural foods ingredients on which Bloodroot relies. The index is color-coded and cross-referenced for both books.

The Fairfeld Weekly had this to say about the new books (April 5, 2007): "Finding an essay on pornography, about how it “is women-hating propaganda,” in the introductory pages of a vegan cookbook, is just one of the things we love about the women who run Bloodroot restaurant in Bridgeport.

We had a chance to browse Selma Miriam and Noel Furie’s brand-new, two-volume cookbook, The Best of Bloodroot , and were fascinated by the essays we found therein. Particularly interesting is the treatise by Lagusta Yearwood that examines the virtues and flaws of the coconut as a replacement for dairy in the vegan diet. We knew, from having sampled some of Selma’s delicious homemade ice creams, that coconut milk is a wholly satisfying, which is to say rich, replacement for cream, thanks to its high fat content. But what we didn’t know was that the fats found in coconut are not unhealthy; in fact, coconut oil is one of the only vegetarian sources of lauric acid, which enhances the immune system and has anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties.

So, even before we’ve tried to replicate one of the recipes in The Best of Bloodroot, we’ve been nourished by it intellectually. That, perhaps, is the most precious quality of this 30-years-and-still-going-strong feminist collective: it’s a place that feeds you well, and in doing so, prompts you to think of the social ramifications of feeding ourselves ethically, sustainably, locally and respectfully of the greatest feminist of them all—Mother Nature."

The Political Palate Series

We wrote our first cookbook for all the people who asked for it. When we began, we had little enthusiasm for the effort until we realized that to "feed" you, we had to tell you what feeds us.

Our cookbooks are more than a collection of recipes. The songs, poems, stories and ideas that we include in our cookbooks are necessary to our lives; we hope to awaken your interest in them, and that you will pursue them beyond what we offer in them.

We published these books through our own Sanguinaria Publishing.

In our first cookbook, The Political Palate, we discuss what feminism means to us and our philosophy.  Our chapters are grouped by the seasons, as our menu is seasonal.  Each recipe page has a quote or poem by a women at the end, this is our way of sharing our inspiration with you.  Our favorite cooking resources and feminist bibliography also included.

The Second Seasonal Political Palate documents our interest in ethnic and ethical cooking, our commitment to feminism, our growth as individual women living and working collectively.  Special emphasis on soyfoods.  Essays on feminism, ethical vegetarianism, thoughts on work, soyfoods, and Collectivity.  Our favorite cooking resources and feminist bibliography is new and is not duplicated from the first cookbook.

More new recipes and essays, predominantly vegan. The Perennial Political Palate is a tribute to our persistence throughout our history. Essays on Time & Technology, Economics, Thoughts on Healing. Eighteen full color photographs of special dishes. More quotes from writings of other feminists and new bibliography section of our favorite feminist books and cooking resources.

In Celebration of our 20th anniversary, The Addendum to the Political Palate Series includes 60 recipes, some are unusual, many are vegan.

The Best of Bloodroot: Volume 2, Vegan Recipes: $27.50 (plus shipping)

Buy both books for $50 (plus $3.25 shipping)

Phone: 203.576.9168 to pay via credit card

Mail order: Make a check out to Anomaly Books, 85 Ferris Street Bridgeport, CT 06605

1 book ..........$2.75
Both books....$3.25

Connecticut residents add 6% sales tax