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Heirloom: Notes from an Accidental Tomato Farmer | 
 enlarge | Author: Tim Stark
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $11.20
You Save: $2.80 (20%)
Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 2449700
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
ISBN: 0767927079
Dewey Decimal Number: 580
EAN: 9780767927079
ASIN: 0767927079
Publication Date: July 14, 2009 (In 187 Days)
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Not yet published
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Product Description
Situated beautifully at the intersection of Michael Pollan, Ruth Reichl, and Barbara Kingsolver, Heirloom is an inspiring, elegiac, and gorgeously written memoir about rediscovering an older and still vital way of life.
Fourteen years ago, Tim Stark was living in Brooklyn, working days as a management consultant, and writing unpublished short stories by night. One evening, chancing upon a Dumpster full of discarded lumber, he carried the lumber home and built a germination rack for thousands of heirloom tomato seedlings. His crop soon outgrew the brownstone in which it had sprouted, forcing him to cart the seedlings to his family’s farm in Pennsylvania, where they were transplanted into the ground by hand. When favorable weather brought in a bumper crop, Tim hauled his unusual tomatoes to New York City’s Union Square Greenmarket, at a time when the tomato was unanimously red. The rest is history. Today, Eckerton Hill Farm does a booming trade in heirloom tomatoes and obscure chile peppers. Tim’s tomatoes are featured on the menus of New York City’s most demanding chefs and have even made the cover of Gourmet magazine.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Takes a pretty grim turn... December 26, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Let me preface my review by saying that I only finished about 2/3 of this book (I'll get to that in a minute) so I'm basing my comments on that part. I agree with pieces of the other reviews. I found this book to be entertaining at times but certainly a bit meandering and repetitive in others. But still I was finding it to be an enjoyable memoir overall until part way through I came to the chapter on groundhogs. Up until this point I had found the author to be humorous and likable. Then I get to the part where Tim catches a rogue groundhog in a Havahart trap and then THROWS THE TRAP IN THE POND and lets the groundhog drown. As an animal lover I found this to be really upsetting and any affection I had for the author totally disappeared. I tried half-heartedly to finish the book but just couldn't bring myself to do it. So.... I guess I would say that if you can manage to get past the wanton animal cruelty you might find this an enjoyable read. As for me, I really couldn't.
Worthwhile and surprising read December 16, 2008
This is a memoir by a man who quit a lucrative career in business to grow heirloom tomatoes and other gourmet produce on his own farm in Pennsylvania.
This was a fun read. I liked learning about the trials and tribulations of trying to grow produce without any use of pesticides. Tim and his friends more or less had to do everything by hand, including picking off all the bugs and toiling frantically into the night to pick the tomatoes as they ripened and roar off off to New York City with them to sell them at their peak. It was also very interesting to learn how the author's perfectionism and Type A personality followed him from consulting to the tomato business.
The author is funny and interesting. I did wish he'd given some insight into why he changed careers and what he really thought about it now, when it's obvious he didn't actually escape his problems. This book is worth reading whether you're interested in tomatoes or you need an antidote to escape fantasies about alternative careers!
Reviewer: Elizabeth Clare, co-author of the historical novel "To the Ends of the Earth: The Last Journey of Lewis & Clark"
Exploits of crazy, for gardeners/foodies who need to know September 30, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Heirloom is perhaps best served in the hands of obsessed foodies who crave behind-the-scenes tours of small organic farms, beyond what Food & Wine magazine teases. For gardeners, Heirloom is welcome and amusing company of crazy.
Without pretense or rehearsed narrative, Stark recounts his humble initiations into organic farming (and supplying top chefs in NYC), knowing very little about it, other than what his obsessions demand. His misadventures amuse. It's not perfect writing, yet it is exactly those imperfections that endear this find.
Detours from the narrative will surprise and delight. Unexpected passages include how Mennonite neighbors coach Stark in farming, auction etiquette and small engine repair. (The last paragraph in that chapter is especially moving.) And vignettes give depth and color to an unlikely cast of characters who help Stark plant, pick, sell and save his crops. Best of all, Stark unearths a family history that gives context and perhaps motivation to his madness. While it is all true, it reads like fiction, a story that you'll surely recommend and remember.
A fantastic late-summer read and welcome winter remedy for gardening/foody obsessives that crave the first signs of Spring.
A Good Read September 28, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I enjoyed this book. It's a quick read, well-written, very personal. If you're interested in knowing more about the reasons a person might become an heirloom tomato farmer when the economic indicators for such a major life change are all negative, read this book. The perils of small-farming are apparent, but somehow, so are the joys. I read the book on a day when I should have been working my own tomatoes, but we've had a rough year and I needed a break. This was it, so I have to say "Thank you Tim!"
 Requirement: be a Foodie.... September 18, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Chances are, you'll find this book a disappointment if you're not a Foodie. I'm borderline, so the book had it's moments for me. It's fairly repetitive, as if the author wrote chapters independent of each other without making any references back to previous writings. If you live in the NY Metro area (which I do), you'll have a deeper appreciation for the locales and events. You can only mention the Newtown Pippin apple so many times.....
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