La Cucina Anna Maria:  Good Life Recipes from San Juan Island
Anna Maria de Freitas

The beautiful San Juan Islands, Washington, are the setting for author Anna Maria de Freitas’s La Cucina Anna Maria – a cookbook that highlights the importance of working with local producers and cooking seasonally.  Anna Maria and her husband own two bed & breakfasts on San Juan Island and have established connections with local farmers to supply their inns with the freshest seasonable food. After their first year as innkeepers and many recipe requests from guests, they were encouraged to write a cookbook.  La Cucina Anna Maria: Good Life Recipes from San Juan Island is the result.

With over 200 recipes, La Cucina Anna Maria is a comprehensive resource for those who like to entertain.  The cookbook also includes:

• A list of ingredients where local, fresh, and organic really matter
• Useful culinary tips scattered throughout the book
• A handy key for each recipe indicating those that are heritage (i.e., passed down through the author’s family), vegetarian, international, quick and easy, and more.

Sample some recipes from La Cucina Anna Maria: Good Life Recipes from San Juan Island:

Smoked Baby Back Ribs with Homemade Barbecue Sauce
Bacon Polenta Wraps
Pasta with Heirloom Tomatoes and Brie

While we may not all be so lucky to live full-time in the San Juans, we can follow Anna Maria’s  culinary principles of working with local farmers and cooking with fruits and vegetables in season.