Books published by Brick Tower Press

"Let's get the consumer in the game. The idea behind HSAs is a 'supercharged IRA' for health care...No other program is as tax advantaged."-John W. Snow, Treasury Secretary"...HSAs can drastically lower an employer's costs of providing employee health benefits. This may allow more small businesses to offer such benefits." -Fed Brock, The New York Times"These accounts give workers the security of insurance against major illness, the opportunity to save tax-free for routine health expenses, and the freedom of knowing you can take your account with you whenever you change jobs." -President George W. Bush"Laing's new book (The Small Business Guide to HSAs) lives up to its name...an excellent explanation of how HSAs work..." -Greg Scandlen, The New York PostA breakthrough in health care for employees and employers alike, HSAs stand for "Health Savings Accounts." As of January 1, 2004, HSAs are a new option from the U.S. government, similar to an IRA, offering individuals a new, tax-sheltered way to accumulate savings. Tax-free dollars in HSAs may be withdrawn instantly for qualified medical expenses, rolled over without penalty for spending in future years, or invested, to accumulate savings to pay for health needs after retirement. The Consumer's Guide to HSAs answers the question "What's in it for Me?" But responsibility doesn't stop there. You must read your medical reports, check statements, and count your pills carefully. Ask questions. Keep records for future use, and soon you will realize as much of the benefits of consumer-driven health care and HSAs as possible. JoAnn Mills Laing has a Harvard MBA and global work and living experience with four public companies (Sara Lee, Olivetti, Chase and Citigroup), as well as running her own ecommerce-based businesses. As chairman of Cybernautics, a premier Audience Development Company, she took the company from idea to profitability and its purchase/IPO (by U.S. Web). Laing is currently President of Information Strategies, Inc., a marketing and information firm based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. She oversees the management of an online editorial service that reaches more than 1.7 million readers each month, and consults with corporations. Ms. Laing has been studying the HSAs marketplace and regularly polling individuals and businesses about healthcare issues. Further, she manages www.HSAfinder.com, the complete independent source for information on Health Savings Accounts for individuals and employers. Ms. Laing is author of The Small Business Guide to HSAs.

"As the Under Secretary of Agriculture I was responsible for the purchase of cranberries for USDA's school lunch program. After observing Liz's cooking class on cranberries, I was amazed at how versatile and delicious cranberries can be when prepared with flair and imagination."-Michael V. Dunn, former under secretary, United States Department of Agriculture"It is a real pleasure to read a cookbook that combines excellent food history with good home cooking. The team of Liz Clark and James Baker could not make for a happier combination of talents. Baker, the historian, leads us through the tradition-rich mythology of the American cranberry while Clark serves it up in the most taste-tempting recipes. The pork terrene with figs and cranberries is certain to win friends."-William Woys Weaver, food historian and contributing editor, GourmetAbout the Authors: Liz Clark was born and raised on a farm at the juncture of the Des Moines and Mississippi Rivers in Southeast Iowa. Besides this book, Liz wrote Fresh Bread Companion, co-authored Apple Companion, contributed to Barbara Grunes's Heartland Food Society Cookbook, Susan Hermann Loomis's The Farmhouse Cookbook, and the James Beard Foundation's The James Beard Celebration, edited by Barbara Kafka. Liz operates a cooking school and a private, by-reservation-only, restaurant on a bluff above the Mississippi River in Keokuk, Iowa. Jim Baker was born into an old Plymouth, Massachusetts family, and grew up with the story of Pilgrims and the traditions of the town. After receiving his Masters' Degree, he accepted a position as librarian at Plimoth Plantation, becoming Head of Research the following year. From 1975 until 2001, he worked at the Plantation. Jim spent years learning period cuisine and becoming a practiced antiquarian cook, overseeing the preparation of feasts for groups such as the Plantation Trustees, the Culinary Historians of Boston, and a period Thanksgiving for Julia Child on ABC TV. He is now Curator for the Alden House Historic Site in nearby Duxbury.

About the Book:Morton and Preston, both experienced herb gardeners, present a unique collection of recipes suited for every palate. This collection uses commonly grown and easily accessible garden herbs found throughout American folklore from the Pilgrims to modern times. In 1796, Amelia Simmons wrote, in the First American Cookbook, "Garlicks, tho' used by the French, are better adapted to the use of medicine than cooking." How tastes have changed in 200 years! From Sage and Raisin Scones to Zucchini Pickles, every herb has its day.Jane Wilson Morton has been cultivating and cooking with fresh herbs for over 20 years. A certified Home Economist, Jane was the Culinary Arts Coordinator for the Great Neck Adult Program, an adjunct lecturer at Queens College, and the writer and producer of educational filmstrips. She studied with Giuliano Bugialli in Italy, Simone Beck in France, Bruno Ellmer at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and others in New York City, California, and Thailand. Jane attended Skidmore College and holds BA and MS degrees from Queens College, New York. Marianne K. Preston was a cooking instructor, food writer, and restaurant reviewer. She was a proprietor of a gourmet shop, The Amateur Gourmet, from 1974 to 1978, and then went on to teach and to write about food for many publications, including Long Island Monthly, Hampton Magazine, Community Newspapers, and Boulevard Magazine where she was food editor. Her food column byline was Cuisine Avec Panache.

Thanksgiving Day! What a wealth of images are evoked by this All-American holiday; a multitude of comforting sentiments that would require an American Dickens to do them justice. Valiant be-buckled Pilgrims and their dignified Indian neighbors sit down to dinner in the serenity of an eternal golden autumn afternoon. Radiant white churches welcome cheerful congregations from their rural homesteads supplying the bounty of the harvest. High school and college football teams defend their scholastic honor as preceding generations had under crisp blue autumn skies sensuously spiced with the faint aroma of burning leaves. Generations converge on old New England homesteads where white-haired grandparents welcome the youngest members of the clan. Shocks of corn and heaps of pumpkins dot the fields and fill the barns, and the strutting monarch of the farmyard, the fattened Thanksgiving turkey, marches to his unsuspected fate. Pies are drawn steaming from cast-iron stoves on which bubbling pots foretell the forthcoming feast. All of this would be recognized by generations of Americans as the essence of Thanksgiving.Elizabeth Brabb is the author of the first title in this series, American Chef¿s Companion. Ms. Brabb¿s research in culinary styles resulted in this compilation of modern Thanksgiving recipes gathered from all parts of the country. A graduate of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, she divides her time between Manhattan and Shelter Island where she lives with her husband and two children.Jim Baker was born into an old Plymouth, Massachusetts family, and grew up with the story of Pilgrims and the traditions of the town. After receiving his Masters' Degree, he accepted a position as librarian at Plimoth Plantation, becoming Head of Research the following year. From 1975 until 2001, he worked at the Plantation. Jim spent years learning period cuisine and becoming a practiced antiquarian cook, overseeing the preparation of feasts for groups such as the Plantation Trustees, the Culinary Historians of Boston, and a period Thanksgiving for Julia Child on ABC TV. He is now Curator for the Alden House Historic Site in nearby Duxbury.

If you know anyone who likes chocolate or perhaps you care to try some yourself, this book has it all. Rogers begins her prose by telling us about the history of chocolate, or how this New World taste traveled around the globe. From its origins as an early colonial commodity to chocolate bars for US soldiers during Operation Desert Storm, Rogers takes you and your taste buds through an array of aromatic delights. From Old-Fashioned Steamed Chocolate Pudding to Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls (they melt in your mouth), everyone who has ever appreciated chocolate must have this book.

Liz Clark was born and raised on a farm at the juncture of the Des Moines and Mississippi Rivers in Southeast Iowa. A graduate of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, Liz is a founding member of the Society for American Cuisine and the Heartland Food Society. A member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals and the American Institute of Wine and Food, Liz received a diploma in Cours Intensifs from La Varenne in Paris, studied at the Moulin de Mougin in France and the Cooking School at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. The American Institute of Wine and Food featured Liz as one of the "Leading Chef's of the Mid West" in 1989. Besides this book, Liz has contributed to Barbara Grunes's Heartland Food Society Cookbook, Susan Herrmann Loomis's The Farmhouse Cookbook, and the James Beard Foundation's The James Beard Celebration, edited by Barbara Kafka. She currently operates a cooking school and a private, by-reservation-only, restaurant in a restored 1847 Italinate Villa-Style house on a bluff above the Mississippi River in Keokuk, Iowa. Jill Vorbeck, the "apple lady," peels, cores, and slices apples in a farm kitchen in central Illinois. She and her husband, Tom, began orcharding in 1977 after abandoning city careers as systems analysts. Today they grow over 200 varieties of apples, the best of the antique and modern, and operate Applesource - the mail order marketplace for specialty apples.

This entertaining book consists of a collection of light-hearted stories, each of which can be read and enjoyed on its own. The story begins in 1948 when Chaim Weizmann recruited the author in London to help what was then the Sieff Institute develop chemical research based on new optical instruments used during the war. The book explains Chaim Weizmann''s passion for research and his passion to help create the State of Israel. Jaffe explains what it was like to be working at the Institute (1948-1968), by recreating the atmosphere and spirit of the now famous scientific institution, during its crucial formative years. The history and present activities of the Weizmann Institute of Science are outlined in an Appendix.

Where the recent movie, "Chronicles of Narnia, the Lion, the Witch and the Wordrobe" begins in wartime London, this book continues the real-life adventure of an actual family caught in the middle of that conflict, threading through the events of World War II. This is a plain tale of a child evacuee escaping the London blitz - and perhaps worse, if the imminence of invasion by gloating shock troops of Nazi elite is taken into account. The author describes his journey on a Canadian-bound Atlantic convoy on a ship once commanded by his father who had been recalled to active duty. He describes the separation from his mother and life aboard ship with the German U-Boat campaign threatening the crew at every moment. The author arrives first in Boston and then travels to New Jersey to live with family friends the author''s father met in New York during the First World War. The story captures the innocence of a special period in American history caught between the Great Depression and Pearl Harbor where terrible military and political events raged unabated until US entry into World War II.In a world where national boundaries increasingly count for little more than lines on a map, its child population could also suffer evacuation to safer zones if a land war affected the country internally. For nothing now is beyond imagination in terms of terrorism in the name of culture, not a country. As a child evacuee to America in a global political climate not unlike the present, the author chose an option-he would avoid the horrors which ultimately proved the lot of Europe''s children had Britain not missed being overrun by a whisker.Visiting New York three weeks after "nine-eleven"; aware of the city''s spontaneous official and citizen response among numbing scenes, was to return to the London blitz, to the 1940s-even the smell was there. This is a story about courage and a family''s ultimate triumph.The author comes from a Welsh family whose origins are in farming, seafaring, and business. His father was a merchant captain and naval reservist who sailed in Atlantic convoys during World War II. Captain Cheek first went to sea as a cadet in a convoy to Russia in 1944 and his career in the Merchant Navy has taken him to the position of shipmaster. In his own words he has had the "thrill and pleasure of commanding 26 merchant ships under eight flags." Resident in Australia for fifteen years he was in Britain when contacted to take command of the ore carrier Tiger Bay. His first book, Legacies of Peril, is based on the tragic wreck of the Tiger Bay in the Russian Baltic in 1980. Since then he has dedicated his career and reputation to campaign vigorously against the blind eye turned to unseaworthy vessels. Previously published works include magazine articles, short stories, and a weekly feature column in the Sydney Daily Commercial News. He had earlier been a staff journalist with Fairplay Shipping Weekly. He now resides in London and New Zealand.

This title jumps into the Christmas feast by spotlighting the tastes and fragrances of the American holiday. From Oyster Soup and Parsley Sauce to Currant Jelly and Yule Dollies, the book explores recipes and cooking ideas popular in the 19th century, but with the palate of the modern family in focus. If you'd like to know how the tradition of Christmas dinner started and sample some true American favorites, then this book is a must for your kitchen library. Easy to read with clear step-by-step directions, don't miss it this season.Bruce T. Paddock has been involved with the past for almost as long as he's been alive in the present. This interest led him to get a degree in History from Yale University. While living in Los Angeles, at both the Doctor's House (a restored Victorian house) and the Heritage Square Museum (a restored Victorian Village) as a lecturer, interpreter, and historical researcher. Bruce has been an afficionado of food for nearly as long. Of course, experience is useless without the ability to communicate it, and Bruce has over twenty years of experience in non-fiction writing. He and his family live in Connecticut.

Pumpkins have been a part of American life for a long time. From Halloween to pumpkin pie everyone knows something about them, but there is more, much more.Pumpkins have an unusual if not a mysterious past. Gourd seeds have been found in 12th-Dynasty Egyptian tombs and Mexican archaeological sites that date back to 7,000 B.C. How they arrived to the Americas is the focus of Bruce T. Paddock's introduction. Although these facts are inconclusive, the recipes prepared by Elizabeth Brabb are certain.From pumpkin pie to cream of pumpkin soup, each recipe is as scrumptious as the aroma of butternut squash on a cool, autumn day. Elizabeth presents a wide assortment of pumpkin favorites and some unlikely meals such as pumpkin ice cream and chocolate covered pumpkins. You'll know what I mean after you've had a chance to read the book.

"I'm thrilled to see that Liz Clark's wonderful breads are reaching a wide public-now everyone can enjoy them!"-Nick Malgieri, pastry cook, teacher, author of Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry, Great Italian Desserts, and How to Bake."Liz was a friend of the great Richard Olney both of whom were born in Iowa."-Reviewer"Liz Clark's keen interest in travel, history, and ability to 'tell a charming story from her childhood' is deliciously expressed in her prose as well as her recipes that are distinct and unmistakably accessible to even the most timid bread baker. Her mouthwatering bread recipes gave rise to an urgent desire for a [Norman Rockwell 'heel' of warm bread slathered with farm-churned butter]."-Janeen Sarlin, lecturer, teacher, author of Food From an American Farm, The New Meatlover's Cookbook, and Everyday Roasting.About the Author:Liz Clark was born and raised on a farm at the juncture of the Des Moines and Mississippi Rivers in Southeast Iowa. The American Institute of Wine and Food featured Liz as one of the "Leading Chef's of the Mid West" in 1989. Besides this book, Liz is the co-author of Apple Companion, contributed to Barbara Grunes's Heartland Food Society Cookbook, Susan Hermann Loomis's The Farmhouse Cookbook, and the James Beard Foundation's The James Beard Celebration, edited by Barbara Kafka. Liz operates a cooking school and a private, by-reservation-only, restaurant in a restored 1847 Italianate Villa-Style house on a bluff above the Mississippi River in Keokuk, Iowa.