FEATURED AUTHOR: LILLIAN BRUMMET

ABOUT THE BOOK

This collection of recipes is the ultimate guide to utilizing fresh fruits and vegetables from backyard gardens to farmer’s markets - the freshest, purest source of food we can draw from. Loaded with lots of interesting tid-bits of historical and nutritional information, this book is more than just a recipe book - it is a way of treating yourself to the healthy, delicious rewards of one small garden.

Eating healthy is not always the easiest with the temptation of fast, easy food all around us. Sourcing your food from either your own backyard garden or a farmer’s market is the best, freshest way to ensure your food is full of nutrients and flavour. The next step of turning it into something inviting and appetizing is offered on every page of “From One Small Garden” - a collection of over 300 recipes developed over a span of 30 years of research and development. This book brings it all to the table in a pleasantly delicious way.


Award-winning authors Dave and Lillian Brummet began experimenting with recipes and compiling them into this book in the early '90's while living in the Okanagan valley in British Columbia, Canada. Over the next 3 decades the manuscript traveled with them to the Boundary region where they resided for 12 years, and then on to their permanent home in Creston. All through these travels, the Brummets re-tested the recipes, perfecting them for this collection.


The couple experimented with a vegetarian diet for a few years, went vegan for a short time, and finally settled down to a more balanced diet that included some animal protein with a huge array of fruits, grains, vegetables, wholesome breads and healthy desserts.


This collection of recipes is the ultimate guide to utilizing fresh fruits and vegetables from backyard gardens to farmer’s markets. Loaded with lots of interesting tidbits of historical and nutritional information, this is more than just a recipe book - it is a way of treating yourself to the healthy, delicious rewards of the freshest, purest source of food we can draw from.


It also has some natural concoctions for your pets, home and garden made from common ingredients in a well-stocked kitchen. You'll find ways to save water, tips for reducing energy costs, and frugal ways to extend your budget by reducing food waste. Learn how to make your own chicken coating, or taco seasoning, air fresheners and cleaning supplies - without the use of harsh chemicals. Reduce your exposure to carcinogenic chemicals and fragrances, save a bunch of money, and cut down on packaging and plastic bottles.
 

Book Details:
Title:  From One Small Garden - Over 300 Delicious Nutritious Recipes
Author: Dave & Lillian Brummet
Genre: Cookbook / health
Print length: 275 pages

 

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH LILLIAN BRUMMET

 
A few of your favorite things: my husband, 3 dogs, and cat are somewhat important to me (she laughs), but when it comes to things, then I would have to say my computer and my cell phone are high on the list. My gardens are my joy, and so they too are high on the list. 
Some things you need to throw out: we spent the last 10 years slowly downsizing and organizing our belongings one drawer, one shelf, one box at a time and have pretty much let go of everything we won't be using. The garage/workshop areas could use a good go through, perhaps, as it can get busy there. If I were to name an emotion that I would like to let go - that would be my anxiety and stress.
 
Things you need in order to write: now that I have younger dogs I find getting YouTube positive mood/meditation music on—and not only do I perform better in the office, but the fur-kids calm down, play nicely by themselves with their many toys laying around the house, and sleep a lot. That is SUPER helpful. :) I almost always turn the phone notifications and volume off.
Things that hamper your writing: things that hamper me are numerous. Clutter is one—having a mess within my eyesight is too distracting, I have to get up and put it right before I can concentrate.
 
Easiest things about being a writer: is there an easy part about writing? (She laughs.) Writing is a challenging career choice - the term "writer" can be many things from a copywriter to an editor, offer services like coaching or workshops, advance other writers like PR and Publishing Agents do, which also requires creative writing skills. We might freelance - querying articles one at a time to numerous publications, juggling dozens of articles and dozens of queries every week so that we have a steady income. Perhaps we are staff writers or contributing writers . . . and receive a fairly steady paycheck. Maybe we are bloggers or . . . published authors. Perhaps our specialty lies in the product or book review genre.
Hardest thing about being a writer: once a writer is ready to publish - the hardest part comes in with deciding how this particular written piece will be delivered to the reader. Will we create a series, selling subscriptions where they receive one chapter at a time? Will it be in video? Will you publish audio or any of the numerous other ways to get the book to the reader?
Knowing who your audience is key: having a general idea where they go and what they do when they are online and the times they are likely to be online. Perhaps in the case of a cookbook or a how-to manual, your audience may only desire print copies, and so you may decline producing it in any other format. Maybe your audience is purely visual and so the video idea is where you need to go.
 
Things you love about where you live: Creston (Canada) is a small city in the heart of the Kootenay Region of BC (Canada). It is a lovely, pristine, mountainous, lake-ridden, natural environment - for the most part. The people here really do care, manage and stand up for their clean, natural lands and waters. There's a ton of nonprofits and it is said that up to 60% of the population volunteers in some way - either formally with an organization or individually, on their own.  There is a wonderful circle of food producers here too, which is a pleasant experience.
Things that make you want to move: the things that bother me are the very high property taxes and the limited city services (we still don't have curbside recycling). Summers can be very hot i.e. right now we are experiencing 38˚ C weather. ugh. Shopping is limited here, but there are larger communities a couple hours away.
 
Words that describe you: tenacious, dedicated, self-disciplined, clean, green, gardener, wife, dog-lover, cook, baker, writer, blogger, author, friend . . .  
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: anxious, nervous, afraid, worried, stressed, tired . . .  sometimes cranky (shhh, don't tell anyone - ha ha).
 
Favorite foods: I am a fan of soup and stew, smoothies, home-baked breads/pancakes/waffles, salads and chocolate - hold the ants. :) I love my own versions of ethnic foods like mild Thai or East Indian curries and Asian stir-fries, Mexican enchiladas, Greek salads, Italian sauces. 

Things that make you want to throw up: aside from tuna, orange roughy and cod—I will not eat most seafood, especially the bugs like lobster, shrimp . . . or slimy oysters, poor little octopi, etc. I also will not eat chocolate covered bugs like ants. Cashews and lamb are definitely off my list.


Favorite music: I could be listening to classical guitar one moment, Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin the next moment, meditation positive vibe music and blues—lots and lots of blues or just listening to Dave drumming on, well, everything :)
Music that makes your ears bleed: I'm definitely not a fan of rap, acid rock, punk rock, old-fashioned country, most modern pop, busy jazz or opera. Pretty much everything else is exciting to me.  

Favorite beverage: I do love dark coffee with cream - but limit myself to only 3 - 4 cups per day now. Or I'll have Ginger Ale with white rum or vodka, or Corona beer. In the winter, I usually drink a lot of tea, brewed from our own dehydrated herbs usually. I really do enjoy lemonade in the summer.
Something that gives you a pickle face: I don't drink pop except if I'm making a wine spritzer (wine made from the juiced berries and fruits we grow in our gardens . . . mixed with Canada Dry Ginger Ale).

Favorite smell: my favorite scent is no scent at all—clean smells that way (or it should). My second favorite would have to be flowers like lavender, peony, iris . . . the smell of rain, my husband after a shower lol and the girls after a bath . . . the scent of freshly washed/dry dogs is lovely. I'm a big fan of fresh bed linen— it is so cozy when it is fresh.
Something that makes you hold your nose: Eucalyptus, cigar smoke, the smell of fresh tar, cat litter, canned pet food, cat barf . . . mold - they all make me gag.  

Proudest moment: my proudest moment was attaining an award from the Recycling Council of BC for our "outstanding work with the media to raise awareness about waste reduction." That was super cool.
Most embarrassing moment: . . . well, actually, I'm embarrassed a lot, however I'll share a recent experience that would fit into the category as a crazy bad one. First, let me say that I'm shy and struggle with mild dyslexia and an anxiety disorder . . .  I am afraid of spiders (I'm sure you can picture me doing the frantic spider web dance in the garden now) and I'm a bit on the clumsy side. That said, I get to enjoy a lot of embarrassing moments. My face has always been naturally flushed and rosy and so when I get warm, nervous, embarrassed—well my face just flares right up. Now that I'm in my 50's, I'm getting little veins in the areas that were always flushed. Yay. So knowing that—I'll tell you about an interview I did on a vodcast—which was, in this case, a live-stream podcast that utilized video. We had just released the new revision of Purple Snowflake Marketing - How To Make Your Book Stand Out In A Crowd (May 2021), and while the host fired the questions my way, I was also able to see myself on the computer screen. So I see the dogs playing and moaning at each other in the background, and it is getting warm this time of day, and I can see that I am flushed. Noticing that, I get embarrassed and get more flushed. Then I have a glorious hot flash (yay menopause lol)—and I'm really very flushed at this point. But the show had to go on, and so I had to pretend I was not aware and keep going. Luckily the hosts were exceptional and the interview experience itself was quite pleasant . . . in fact the hosts bought a copy of the book I just mentioned. Sadly it had just come out in a new edition and I had not received my author copies until a few days later . . . and there were a few errors, minor, but there just the same . . . and I was triple embarrassed about that. We fixed the minor grammar and typo mistakes immediately of course. I then reached out to apologize and explain to the hosts—in case they noticed the errors in the copy they had ordered. I thought 'how much worse could this have gone?" Holy, it was tough for me to sleep for a few nights. So there - now you all know my most embarrassing moment as a writer :)


 


ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Lillian and her husband Dave are the team behind Brummet Media Group, high-fiving cheerfully as they pass each other on the way from checking off one item or other from their long to-do list. After moving to their dream location (in the Kootenay Region of BC, Canada), they have been methodically converting the abused lot over to the little park it has become—and in doing so have gained certification with bee, pollinator and wildlife organizations. Their home, too, has become energy efficient via the many upgrades they have done. Their business includes Dave’s music studio and percussion accessory products and graphic design work as well as numerous award-winning non-fiction books and popular blogs.
 
Connect with the authors:
 Website  |  Facebook  |  Amazon 

Buy the book: 
Amazon USA  |  Amazon Canada  

 

FEATURED AUTHOR: DR. ROBERT KILTZ

ABOUT THE BOOK


Living Your Best Life: How to Think, Eat, and Connect your Way to a Better Flow will provide the resources necessary to help create the ideal you by focusing not only on the body but on the mind and the soul as well. Dr. Kiltz applies a holistic approach to medicine, working collaboratively on his patients’ physical being as well as their emotional and spiritual selves. In his book, Dr. Kiltz provides guidance on various self-help techniques such as the power of mediation, eliminating stress, the benefits of yoga, and listening to your inner voice.

Book Details


Title: Living Your Best Life: How to Think, Eat, and Connect your Way to a Better Flow


Author: Dr. Robert Kiltz

Genre: nonfiction, health and wellness, mental health, motivation, self-help, holistic lifestyle, nutrition, diet


Publisher: Waterside Productions (April 21, 2021)


Print length: 252 pages

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH DR. ROBERT KILTZ

A few of your favorite things: my guitar, my potter’s wheel, but also my partner, my relationship, and my dedication to the work I love to do as a physician, artist, and father.

Things you need to throw out: somedays I think I need to throw out most everything in my closet for sure, but old clothes and stuff in drawers and on my desk that I haven’t touched or seen in way too long.

Things you need in order to write: a quiet space, but mostly inspiration—thoughts and ideas that I learn from reading, listening to, and watching others. Then I can conceive of ideas that might be a little different or I can just twist and turn them around a little bit. 

Things that hamper your writing: distractions and being tired. When I’m tired, I’m a little distracted also. I just need to lay down, take a nap and rest and relax. Quite often even then I need to listen, watch or read something else to re-inspire me.

Things you love about writing: freeing my thoughts and ideas and expressing them help me to better understand myself and life in general. It’s like any other piece of art—my pottery and my painting—it’s an expression, but it lets those feelings flow and gives creativity to my life. 

Things you hate about writing: writer’s block and the fear and worry that my thoughts and ideas have little value and maybe won’t be liked. But I’m working on getting over that one.

Easiest thing about being a writer: nothing. Being a writer isn’t easy because there are all of those fears and worries we carry. But it’s not really a difficult job. It’s not digging a ditch or fighting in a war zone. 

Hardest thing about being a writer: the hardest thing may be conveying the real thoughts and feelings and finding the right words and ideas, but learning through practice and patience, those skills come too.

Things you love about where you live: I live on a lake in Upstate New York in Skaneateles. It’s the lake and nature that draw me. I think it’s the quiet nature of the area. Growing up in Los Angeles, there were (and still are) a lot more crowds, traffic, smog, and concrete. Although I did spend time at the ocean. I grew up in Newport Beach and in LA. I guess you take all of the good and the bad and learn from it. The beauty is all there in everything. But what I really love about Upstate New York is the greenery, the lakes, and the land.  

Things that make you want to move: not much, because I really love where I live. At times the winters can be a little cold and long, leaving me aspiring for a little sunlight and warmth, which is why I go down to Florida for a little bit in the winter too. So we can solve those problems quite easily.

Things you never want to run out of: life and enthusiasm, but I think we never really run out of any of that stuff. It’s always there.

Things you wish you’d never bought: that’s a hard one. I’m not sure I know of anything I wish I never bought. I typically don’t have any regrets of anything I’ve done or bought or experienced.

Words that describe you: energetic, enthusiastic, joyful, hardworking, and focused.

Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: selfish and egocentric. But really that part of me is always focused on finding thoughts and ideas to help others, so that’s the conundrum.

Favorite foods: rib-eye steak. Pittsburgh blue sliced. The fattiest one you can find. Ice cream. Kiltz’s Ice Cream. Cream, egg, vanilla, a little bit of sugar. It’s the very best. But fresh is best.

Things that make you want to throw up: a merry-go-round. Spinning motion. I’m not good at that. And maybe a little goulash. Maybe it’s the word. I’ve never actually had it.

Favorite music: I love jazz, flamenco, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. I love most music, but I really love most music without words. I love the repetition of the guitar, piano, trumpet, and the wind sounds. Mostly when it’s positive and uplifting. Occasionally the sorrow and sadness of a song or music can get to your heart and help you dig deep into the feelings and bring about the understanding of our human-ness, our faithfulness, and our connection to the vibrations and energy of the universe.

Music that makes your ears bleed: I don’t particularly like heavy metal, but maybe it’s just the loudness and it’s just not my vibration.

Favorite beverage: coffee has been my favorite beverage for a long time, but I’ve been off coffee for a few weeks now trying to detoxify, so sparkling water or plain water.

Something that gives you a pickle face: pickle juice and tart lemonade.

Favorite smell: jasmine. The night-blooming jasmine that sat right outside our front door at our house in Los Angeles in Silver Lake. My mother loved that plant. I loved the smell. From time to time it comes to my mind and brings back fond memories of growing up in LA.

Something that makes you hold your nose: I don’t hold my nose for much because I have to get into some dirty stuff as a physician, but rotten eggs is a good answer.

Something you’re really good at: pottery, flying, and being a fertility physician. Those are the things I’m good at, but I always say I need more practice and learning. There’s nothing we are perfect at. We need to keep working to be better at the thing and that takes practice, practice, practice.
Something you’re really bad at: in-the-line drawings. That means staying in lines. Most of my painting and pottery is kind of throwing mud or paint, not in the lines. Any time I try to draw something exactly how it looks, I go very abstract.

Something you wish you could do: singing better and reading music. I just need to decide to put my time and energy to it. Anything you really want to do, just do it. 
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: drink alcohol is about the only one.

Something you like to do: sit at the potter’s wheel making pottery and also in front of a canvas making paintings or free-writing in my journal, listening, reading, and being inspired by others. The thing that gives me the most meditative joy is sitting at the potter’s wheel making pottery.

Something you wish you’d never done: complained about anyone or anything. I’d like to get rid of the complaints I’ve lived in life.

Last best thing you ate: steak, lobster with butter and salt, and some really crispy French fries (fried in duck grease) and dipped in mayonnaise.
Last thing you regret eating: I don’t typically eat things I’m going to regret, but I guess it might have been the salad and vegetables I ate at the restaurant Tia and I went to over Easter. It was one of those six-course meals, and they had all of these fancy vegetables. I promised Tia I would eat everything on my plate, and I did. But it caused me a little ogida the next day. It’s all good. I survived and thrived.

Things you’d walk a mile for: to spend time with my partner, Tia, and my daughter, Pilar.

Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: too much loud noise and distractions.

Things you always put in your books: stories of success.

Things you never put in your books: stories of failure, but only because I look at stories of failure absolutely as stories of success. The more you do, the more you learn and get creative, you find those stumbling blocks are really stepping stones.

Favorite places you’ve been: Cabo San Lucas with Tia or traveling through Paris, Rome, and London with all of the amazing life, art, people, and creativity in all of these inspiring places.
Places you never want to go to again: I don’t really have many places like that. There are great people in the Dominican Republic, but we just had an experience in an all-inclusive resort that wasn’t the greatest. I typically don’t think about things that way though.

Favorite things to do: fly my plane or jet, sit at the potter’s wheel, paint a canvas, and spend some time with Tia or Pilar.
Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: maybe making the bed?

Things that make you happy: seeing others happy, seeing others succeed, seeing those patients suffering from infertility conceive and deliver that beautiful baby, and building families.
Things that drive you crazy: not spending time with my daughter or Tia.

Proudest moment: becoming a doctor and seeing my parents’ pride in that and, of course, becoming a father.
Most embarrassing moment: when I didn’t match for my residency in OB/GYN in my fourth year of medical school, that was an embarrassing moment, but I think I took it in stride and ultimately it was one of the best things that happened to me. It gave me the gift of something different that I learned from and grew from. It created even more for me. So, I don’t look at it as truly embarrassing because the more I’m embarrassed, the more I grow and learn and let it go.

Biggest lie you’ve ever told: ultimately, I am less or I am imperfect or I am a failure. And I realized that lie was always perpetuating what I thought about. But it was part of the energy that brought me to the truth that I am everything, God is everything, and we all are here doing our best every day.
A lie you wish you’d told: maybe it’s the part that God is all of us. But in fact, I recognize that it’s not really the lie, it’s the truth. But our brain still has a fighting nature with all of that. And so all things essentially in the lies I told are all perfect in the way they were told, but you’ve got to understand the truth when it comes for whatever reason.

Best thing you’ve ever done: become a father.
Biggest mistake: I make mistakes every day, but none of them are ultimately the “big one.” They are all small in the nature of the universe. We make them “big” or we make them “small” in our thinking.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: learning to fly an airplane and a jet.
Something you chickened out from doing: dedicating my life to doing a better job when I was younger. And understanding the power of God. Had I begun to listen and learn when I was much younger, then maybe I would have learned new and different things at a younger age. But maybe my big “chicken out” thing today was to get in a helicopter and jump off onto a skill hill [heloskiing]. I’m staying away from that one!

OTHER BOOKS BY DR. ROBERT KILTZ

Daily Inspirations

The Fertile Feast

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Robert Kiltz is a board-certified OB/GYN and reproductive endocrinologist, and Founder and Director of CNY Fertility, one of the largest and most dynamic fertility centers in the country, featured in the Wall Street Journal, Today Show, and CNBC for helping shape the future of fertility medicine. Dr. Kiltz has earned recognition outside of the fertility world for pioneering the holistic health movement and the keto lifestyle. He is the author of several books including The Fertile Feast and Daily Inspirations, and his latest, Living Your Best Life: How to Think, Eat, and Connect your Way to a Better Flow which released April 2021. In addition to his own media outlets, Dr. Kiltz appears regularly on numerous popular blogs and has shared his views as a TEDx speaker.



Connect with Dr. Kiltz:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Instagram  |  Youtube  |  Goodreads 


Buy the book:
Amazon