Judith Fertig's Heartland: The Cookbook is big and beautiful, filled with lovely farm photos (like the one on its cover) and cozy stories from cities and towns across the Midwest. It's the kind of book that anyone with an interest in farm-to-table food in the Midwest would be happy to give -- or get -- as a gift. Just having it on my kitchen counter makes me feel good.
Heartland's terrific photos and engaging stories would make it a perfect coffee table book, if it were just that. But at its core Heartland is a cookbook, and an excellent one at that.
