Customer Reviews:
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 Delicious Read September 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Being interested in one day changing careers from financial industry to the vegetable industry, I could identify with the author. This is really a "How To" book on starting an Heirloom vegetable business, only written in a storytelling fashion. Every chapter exudes the author's passion.
 Uneven and monotonous September 11, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I had such high hopes for this book, but, I was disappointed about 30 pages into it--I had hoped that Stark would talk about the connection to the land, the familial joys of being an accidental farmer, allow the reader to bask in the beauty of heirloom tomatoes, but he didn't. I started to believe that I had heard the best part of the book in his NPR interview. There are moments of beautiful writing, but, it's not consistent. Page after page about sitting in traffic, pulling weeds and remembering tractors begins to wear on any reader, even an interested one. Unless you've got lots of mental time to kill, I wouldn't recommend it!
 An interesting slice of contemporary Americana August 27, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Tim Stark was an aspiring author doing various makeweight jobs in New York City when he got preoccupied with trying to raise heirloom tomatoes in his Brooklyn apartment. When his landlord put his foot down, Stark relocated his tomatoes and himself to his boyhood home in Lenhartsville, in Berks County, Pennsylvania, which is within the farming region of the Pennsylvania Dutch and about a two-hour drive from NYC (assuming no traffic jams). HEIRLOOM recounts Stark's ten or so years raising organic produce -- principally, heirloom tomatoes, but also chile peppers and sugar snap peas among many others -- on a few acres in Pennsylvania and then selling his produce at the Union Square Greenmarket and to some of the best restaurants in New York City.
Stark confronts an endless succession of obstacles and problems -- ignorance, weather, inadequate and balky equipment, lack of ready cash, insufficient labor, an obstreperous jerk of a neighbor, and insects, deer, and gophers -- each of which he somehow overcomes, or circumvents, or, at a minimum, learns to live with. Thankfully (for me, at least), Stark does not dwell on tedious agricultural details. This is not a garderer's journal; if anything, it probably is of greater interest to the appreciative consumer of organic farming than the practitioner. Interesting subjects discussed at some length are the Amish and Mennonites of the area, the farmer/chef relationships that have developed and undergird some of the most noted restaurants in NYC, and the bleak future for similar agricultural operations catering to urban markets, due to shrinking affordable farmland.
Stark's writing is above average, occasionally quite good, but it is uneven and at times a little disjointed and unnecessarily confusing. The last chapter in particular seems rushed. Stark should have given the book one more thorough review and revision, but I suspect that would have been asking too much of his rather restless personality. Still, HEIRLOOM is an enjoyable sketch of an interesting slice of contemporary Americana that can be read in a day or two.
The Literary Farmer August 4, 2008
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
I just ordered this book today so I can't comment on it per se. However I met Tim in November of '06 and spent about a week with him at an Agriturisimo in Cortona, Italy and can say he was a wonderfully laid back, knowledgable and articulate character who had just had his first article printed in Gourmet Magazine. He also has a number of blogs on Gourmet's Epicurious site and has a very entertaining article in the newest issue of Gourmet itself about manning his pepper stand at the farmers' market. Without even seeing it I am sure "Heirloom" is well worth the read. I believe he's been writing even longer than he's been farming.
Eat Local, Read Global August 1, 2008
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
Heirloom: Notes From an Accidental Tomato Farmer is the bestselling book at my local coffeehouse in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. It is the only book for sale at the Uptown. The author is a farmer who grows the vegetables they use in their savory soups and salads. Last week, along with the tomatoes and red beets, Tim Stark delivered a case of books. I picked up a copy of out of curiosity. I am not much of a gardener, no gourmet, never even pause on the food channel, but found this book to be quite extraordinary.
Did you see the YouTube video of the elephant painting a picture? The elephant holds a brush in his trunk and paints a self-portrait. It was one hell of a great painting for an elephant. I feared Heirloom would leave me thinking `great book for a farmer.' Well, my fears were groundless. Heirloom is a great book for any writer of English language prose.
Tim Stark writes with wit, economy, and remarkable style. I'm a big fan of John McPhee's nonfiction. Heirloom makes reference to McPhee's Giving Good Weight, which chronicled the early days of the Union Square Greenmarket where Stark sells his prize tomatoes. Among the farmers Stark talks to is Alvina Frey, the New Jersey bean grower McPhee described as the essence of that market.
But Heirloom reminds me more of McPhee's 1966 classic, Oranges. The back cover of Oranges quotes Roderick Cook's review from Harper's magazine, "This is a surprising book. You may come to the end of it and say to yourself, `But I can't have read a whole book about oranges!' But the chances are you will have done so... It's a delicious book... more absorbing than many a novel." Substitute "tomatoes" for "oranges" and those same words could be printed on Heirloom's cover.
While the book is mostly about tomatoes, there is a full chapter about the "misunderstood" habanero pepper and a killer chapter about a groundhog in the greenhouse. Most wonderful are the elegant descriptions of the land and the soil, and tender portraits of the people who grow the food we eat.
Take Milt Miller, for example. At first glance the description of the old farmer borders on a broad-brush caricature of the Pennsylvania Dutch. When asked what he likes to do for fun, Milt replies:'Plow.' It is clear, though, Stark holds Miller in high regard, "The damp sensual pleasure of bringing earth to light. The wormy aroma of satiny upturned clods drying in the April sun. That was what turned Milt on."
Highly recommended.
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