The following recipe by the Canadian Living Test Kitchen is reprinted with permission from Canadian Living and adapted from its Web site at www.canadianliving.com/. It originally ran in the December 2005 issue. All rights reserved.

As you read foodie blogs, Web sites, and magazines and watch FoodTV, never forget that James Barber did it all first. Long before there was callow young Jamie, there was well-seasoned James cooking on TV in The Urban Peasant (still showing somewhere around the world). Isn't urban peasant–hood what we're all striving for these days, with our heirloom-tomato plants and farmers markets?

The following recipe is a supplement to the Dining feature "Orchard full of idealism, grit" and is reprinted with permission from Heidi Noble's Menus from an Orchard Table: Celebrating the Food and Wine of the Okanagan (Whitecap Books 2007, $34.95). All rights reserved.

We're now over the erectile green shoots of asparagus and into lascivious red strawberries, along with the marine smells and yielding pink flesh of tuna and shrimp, and let's not even talk about geoduck. Trevor Corson, however, discusses all these aquatic things in detail in The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, From Samurai to Supermarket (HarperCollinsCanada, $29.95).

SIMPLE REMEDIESThose who struggle to find meals that won't wreak havoc on their digestive system–and actually have flavour–will want to check out Kendall Conrad's Eat Well Feel Well (Potter, $30). Subtitled Meals to Help Manage Crohn's Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Celiac Disease, Diverticulitis, and Other Digestive Conditions, the book contains more than 150 recipes based on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.

The fresh crop of cookbooks that bursts forth each spring is as dependable as the cherry blossoms. While this season's bounty is the usual mixed bouquet, many share a common thread: the search for roots, and an emphasis on cooking with the seasons. In the case of Brit chef Heston Blumenthal, it's authenticity of ingredients, recipes, and techniques that propels him on an Air Miles–earning tour in In Search of Perfection (Bloomsbury, $45).

Tired of eating a bowl of ordinary cereal every morning? Then visit Mr Breakfast ( www.mrbreakfast.com/ ) or Mrs Breakfast ( www.mrsbreakfast.com/ )—depending on whether you're male or female—for articles, product reviews, 9,600 restaurant ratings (including several in the Lower Mainland), shopping hints, and more than 1,700 recipes for the most important meal of the day. I can't decide if this is useful or just plain loopy. Isn't the Internet full yet?

Valentine’s Day isn’t just a boon for chocolate shops and flower shops. Head to any bookstore and smack in the centre aisle there is a tower of titles on sex and romance. But you’ve got to wonder why so many of them are so bad. The argument could be made that if you actually have to do research on ways to add zest to your love life, then it’s probably already a lost cause.

White Spot regulars seek the familiar. Habitués of C Restaurant can handle the experimental. It’s not rocket science, but it is an infallible formula for picking the right cookbooks to wrap up this season.

As promised in the health column "Experts help to pack a lunch with punch", here are a couple of recipes that might inspire you to take your lunch to work.

What do Elvis Presley and Vancouver's just-concluded Powell Street Festival have in common? It's not immediately obvious. But if you browse through a copy of the Powell Street Festival Society's freshly minted cookbook, you'll find out.

Dan Jason founded, and is a former director of, Canada's Heritage Seed Program, and is the owner of Salt Spring Seeds. This recipe is from his The Whole Organic Food Book: Safe, Healthy Harvest From Your Garden to Your Plate (Raincoast Books, $24.95)

The following recipe is a supplement to the Dining feature "Tijuana restaurateur demonstrates Mexican cuisine for Day of the Dead".

This recipe is a supplement to the Dining feature "Tarts and other recipes don't have to be lemons with the addition of citrus".

The following recipe is a supplement to the Dining feature "Now, that's good readin'" and is reprinted with permission from Chow: From China to Canada: Memories of Food and Family (Whitecap Books, $24.95).