• Coastal Cooking by John Shields (Broadway Books)
  
  "Whether it is because of my upbringing, or simply the fact that most of civilization's great cultural, spiritual, economic, and gastronomic centers have been on the water, I just cannot get enough of the coastal life," states John Shields in the Introduction to his cookbook, Coastal Cooking. Filled with 125 of the best recipes from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf Coasts as well as Hawaii, there are recipes for soups and one-pots, salads, desserts and endless ways to prepare seafood
  
  
• At Home, At Sea by Anne Mahle (Baggywrinkle Publishing)
  
  This book with recipes from the Maine Windjammer J & E. Riggin is not just for folks who love the water. Whether it's Crepes Eggs Benedict for breakfast or Lobster and sun-dried tomato fettuccini for dinner, it's a book filled with delicious and nutritious recipes. Stories woven around the recipes focus on the picturesque life aboard the schooner.

• Oregon Wine Country by John Doerper (Foder Publishing)
  
  Organized by the major growing regions, this guide covers the best wineries in the state and includes well-organized driving tours as well as events and festivals, plus places to stay and eat.
  
  
• Washington Wine Country by John Doerper (Fodor Publishing)
  
  This guide offers how to plan a tasting-and-buying tour plus informative sidebars on how to read a wine label, Washington's appellations and an extensive glossary. Both the Oregon and Washington Wine Country guides help visitors feel like locals.
  
  
• Wine Buying Guide for Everyone by Andrea Immer (Broadway Books)
  
  This user-friendly, pocket-sized purchasing "power tool" is a resource that food and wine lovers can turn to for accessible and intelligent wine choices. Recommendations are listed by wine category, then by winery name. Entries indicate Price Category ($12 to $35 plus); Taste; and Value Rating. As Andrea says: "The only thing that should come between wine and people is the cork."

Sustainable Cuisine: Earth-Friendly Foods Served at U.S. National Park Resorts

Chefs at U.S. national parks are ensuring that visitors see more green dishes - foods that are healthy for the environment as well as the restaurant patron. Called "sustainable cuisine," these foods are grown and harvested in ways that are least harmful to the environment.

Coffee planted among existing forests, rather than clear cut areas, to protect the ecosystem of migratory birds is one example. Other examples are wild Alaskan salmon that is more sustainable than its farm-raised counterparts, and beef from animals that are fed feed free of hormones and antibiotics and managed in a fashion that protects natural habitat.

Chef Brandon Shubert, executive chef of Lake Powell Resorts and Marinas (www.lakepowell.com), won top honors in a sustainable menu competition among 21 leading chefs of ARAMARK, a National Park Service concessionaire. In the Rainbow Room in Arizona's Glen Canyon Recreation Area, Chef Shubert offers Hearst Ranch Grass Fed Beef, locally grown organic herbs and vegetables from nearby Page High School greenhouse, and farm-raised striped bass, one of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch list "Best Choices."

Though Chilean sea bass (Patagonian toothfish) was in recent years the trendy fish to have on the menu anywhere in the world, chefs have banned together now to reduce demand. Dangerous over fishing, mainly by illegal "pirate" fishing boats, has vastly depleted the supply and decreased the quality.

Chef Shubert procures buffalo, quail, mussels and Rocky Mountain trout that is farm raised. By partnering with the high school for lettuce and heirloom tomatoes, students see how food goes "from the seed to the plate," and transportation costs are non-existent.

Chef Shubert who grew up in the Four Corners area with Tex-Mex food offers a three cheese cactus dip as one of the appetizers. It's a savory mixture of three creamy cheeses, cactus pads, baked until bubbling hot, served with assorted chips. "We take the whole cactus pad, burn off the thorns, throw the pad on the grill and poach or par cook. We chop them up, make a traditional spinach artichoke dip and add the grilled cactus. It gives a crunch and a smokiness that is unique."

Often Chef Shubert and/or his sous-chefs create menus and meals for weddings or executive meetings on beaches along the 2,000 miles of Lake Powell's spectacular shoreline. The magnificent scenery of towering red rock sandstone cliffs, more than 90 major canyons and brilliant blue-green water is similar to the awe-inspiring Grand Canyon. Or they might cater meals aboard a 75-foot luxury houseboat complete with six staterooms, fireplace, hot tub and home theater.

Lake Powell, on the border of Utah and Arizona, is situated in the heart of the "Grand Circle," a collection of national parks and monuments, including the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, Navajo reservation and the Grand Staircase Escalante.

Menus using local, organic and seasonal foods help to sustain, even transform local food networks, encouraging farmers to grow foods organically without fertilizers and pesticides. In the process farms may be saved. In the state of Connecticut for example, over 8,000 acres of cropland are lost each year. As farms are saved, urban sprawl may be halted or slowed, and transportation costs lowered when food need no longer be transported over long distances.

At other ARAMARK properties like the Metate Room in Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park, Chef Todd Halnier serves up a range of innovative items including Cactus Dip, using locally-sourced prickly pear cactus leaves and chili-rubbed farm raised elk. Restaurants in Washington's Olympic National Park and Olympic National Forest serve farm raised venison tenderloin with black currant demiglace, and a crème brulee using milk free of rBGH (Bovine Growth Hormone).

"Especially in national parks where we're preserving the beauty of what we have, sustainable cuisine is the thing to do," concluded Lake Powell Resort's Chef Shubert. "As a company, we (i.e. ARAMARK) try to be very environmentally conscious anyway - recycling a lot and using products not harmful to the environment." ARAMARK has been recognized nationally for its Planet EVERgreen " environmental management system.

Xanterra Parks & Resorts, another concessionaire which operates lodges and restaurants at national and state parks throughout the United States, has also won awards for its environmental program Ecologix.

Xanterra Parks & Resorts' first foray into the world of sustainable cuisine was a ban in 2002 on four types of fish species deemed harmful to the environment because of harvesting practices or low species populations. The ban included Chilean sea bass, Atlantic swordfish, and all species of shark and bluefin tuna.

Selected Xanterra restaurants in Yellowstone serve Conservation Beef, produced from cows raised on natural grasses on the Western range. No growth hormones or antibiotics are given to the animals. The beef is dry-aged to enhance flavor, and the program supports habitat conservation in partnership with the Nature Conservancy.

A Foodservice Energy Awareness Program teaches all foodservice employees to participate in energy conservation in a variety of ways, while Xanterra's Green Procurement program also ensures that all paper products and chemicals used in the company's foodservice operations are environmentally sound.

"We believe that everyone involved in the production and promotion of food - from the farmer to the restaurateur - has an obligation to ensure their business practices are not harmful to the environment," said Chris Lane, director of environmental affairs for Xanterra Parks & Resorts. "There has been a pervasive idea in the hospitality industry that serving sustainable cuisine and running a profitable operation could not go hand-in-hand. We have found this notion to be false because the general public is pleased to learn about the benefits of sustainable cuisine and customers are quite receptive to trying earth-friendly items."

ARAMARK: www.aramark.com
Xanterra: www.xanterra.com

Crete is the largest island of Greece, rich in history and mythology, and home of one of the most advanced civilizations of the ancient world, the Minoans. The Minoans were among the earliest cultivators of the olive tree and believed it to be sacred. Many of the olive branches for the required 5,513 wreaths for the 2004 Olympics came from the Greek island of Crete, where the first olive press was supposedly developed around 1,600 B.C. The wreaths for the Men's and Women's Marathon were taken from 2 olive trees in Crete believed to be over 3000 years old!

The people of Crete have been extensively studied to determine the health secrets of their longevity and low heart disease. In fact, major studies of the Mediterranean diet over a period of years have consistently documented that the participants from Crete have the lowest percentage of heart attacks, forms of cancer, and the greatest longevity. One of the contributing factors is that its people have the highest consumption of olive oil in the world.

Taste of Crete Extra Virgin Olive Oil (www.tasteofcrete.com) is high in monounsaturated fat, high in antioxidants and regular consumption could lower harmful LDL cholesterol. The handpicked Koroneiki olives are pressed immediately in order not to lose quality or its exceptional flavor. This provides for the extremely low acidity level of 0.3% and gives the palate a mild peppery taste as it contains a high level of anti-oxidants.

Taste of Crete carries the "PDO, Protected Designation of Origin" seal. This is a highly coveted European Union recognition of its exceptional quality and that the cultivation and processing of the oil are done in the traditional manner in the Sitia region of Crete. It is based on the concept of "terroir," (much as wine is), which holds that the flavor and other unique qualities of a traditionally made food are formed through a complex interaction of soil, plant life, climate and centuries old production methods that cannot be replicated elsewhere.