Lucie Snodgrass is passionate about food—and the local Maryland farmers, watermen, and chefs whose commitment to growing and preparing healthy foods is changing the way we eat. In her new book, Dishing Up Maryland, Lucie shares this passion with us through recipes highlighting local, seasonal ingredients and personal stories of the local farmers at the forefront of the local foods movement in Maryland.

Lucie’s love affair with fresh food started early in life. As a child of Swiss born parents, Lucie spent many happy vacations at her grandmother Ohma’s farm in Switzerland where “Victory Gardens” were a way of life. Lucie loved to tend the garden and harvest the produce she helped grow—from artichokes to beets, carrots, lettuce, potatoes, currants, strawberries and raspberries. Ohma, according to Lucie, “was the finest jam and jelly maker on the face of the earth” and Lucie and her sister, Alexandra spent hundreds of hours making currant jelly and several varieties of jam every summer.  Today, Lucie and her sister turn out dozens of jars of jam every year, and neither has ever bought a jar of either jelly or jam!  In her own garden Lucie grows many of those same crops she grew as a child, usually heirloom varieties. “I love nothing more than working out in the vegetable garden, weeding, seeding, and harvesting. It’s about the most satisfying feeling in the world,” says Lucie.

Lucie’s greatest culinary influences, however, came from her father, a very fine cook, and the two Swiss women who helped raise her, Hedy Hauser and her cousin Vreni Brand.  Hedy had been trained as a chef and who according to Lucie, “could butcher anything that walked or flew, could make sausage, cheeses, breads, and sweets.”  Since  Hedy and Vreni  lived with Lucie’s family since Lucie was just four years old, Lucie said that by the time she was eight she had mastered the basics of a good cooking school education and was well on her way to becoming an accomplished chef.

Education and career (Lucie holds two graduate degrees) have taken Lucie in other directions as well. Much of her life has been devoted to working for and with women, including with Madeleine Albright at the State Department, and currently as state director for Senator Barbara Mukulski. Lucie is passionate about bringing women to the forefront and hopes that this book inspires more women to take risks and follow their dreams. One of Lucie’s dreams was to write a cookbook, a book whose vision was to bring attention to Maryland farmers and watermen.

Dishing Up Maryland is that book. With 150 recipes organized by season, each chapter of Dishing Up Maryland not only contains recipes featuring local ingredients—from Oven Roasted Asparagus with Toasted Almonds, Chevre Croquettes on Spring Field Greens, to Maryland Soft-shelled Crabs with Lemon, Capers, and Herbs and Grilled Confetti Rockfish—it features the stories and recipes of Maryland’s farmers, waterman, and chefs as well as Lucie’s own recipes. Dishing Up Maryland captures the diversity of Maryland foods—from wild-caught seafood, to farmed oysters, shrimp, bison, and poultry to cheeses, grapes, figs, vinegars and wines—the variety of local Maryland foods featured will surprise and delight you. Full of photos and flavors, Dishing Up Maryland will surely inspire you to search out and support local farmers and watermen, use local ingredients, cook more seasonally, and maybe even plant your own garden!