Book excerpt: In 288 pages, Cooking Light Pick Fresh Cookbook will share the secrets to buying, growing, and cooking your favorite fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Bursting with beautiful color photographs, this book is an invaluable resource for home cooks, novice gardeners, and food lovers alike. Cooking Light Pick Fresh Cookbook includes: Cooking Light Pick Fresh Cookbook features: Fruits, Veggies, Herbs: Dedicated chapters guide you through choosing, storing, growing and preparing flavorful recipes using the freshest ingredients Expert Tips: Teaches you how to grow your own produce virtually anywhere Season-to-Season Garden Plans: Provides the basics on starting your garden, plus easy-to-follow instructions for maintaining and caring for your garden 200 Full-Color Photos and 150 Delicious Recipes For Food Lovers: Utilize the fresh taste of the seasons' best produce in your dishes from delicious appetizers and sides, to supremely fresh salads and main dishes, and delectable desserts Complete Nutritional Analysis: Each recipe includes a list of the key nutrients, vitamins and minerals FoodCorps' Guide to Connecting Kids with Fresh Produce: Cooking Light's media partner FoodCorps shares the three pillars for teaching gardening to children and shares inspiring stories from FoodCorps service members Garden Editor and Pick Fresh Cookbook Spokesperson, Mary Beth Burner Shaddix leads the Cooking Light garden, bringing basket-bursting harvests of fruits, vegetables and herbs to the pages of Cooking Light magazine and Pick Fresh Cookbook. After 10 years working in the marketing and research department at Cooking Light, Mary Beth traded in her business suits for rubber boots to get back to her roots-literally. Digging in spade first, she began learning the breadth of gardening at a local retail nursery and eventually working and being certified with Master Gardeners. Little did she know, the manager who curiously eyed her resume at the nursery would soon be her husband. They now grow together at their wholesale nursery and farm, Maple Valley Nursery, near Birmingham, Alabama. She is also the founder/owner of A New Leaf Consulting and manages social media at Bonnie Plants, Inc., a grower specializing in herbs and vegetables