Three ways to treat pumpkin as an ingredient, not a flavor: fire-roasted cavatelli, a fresh pumpkin bourbon cocktail, and wood-fired pumpkin pie, with a short history of how pumpkin got here.

One ear of corn becomes three different things: salty corn cob ice cream, sweet corn caramel and a corn-silk bourbon coupe, plus maize history and practical ways to use the husks.

A crystal-clear tomato martini made with ripe summer tomatoes, vodka, dry vermouth, MSG and a brined green tomato garnish, without the laboratory equipment I used the first time around.

Garlic mustard and Japanese knotweed are both ecological problems and useful ingredients. A spring field note on cooking thoughtfully from a damaged landscape, with pesto and a knotweed dish.

Warm bread, tangy butter and the bitter edge of burnt honey. On the small decisions that make a dish stay with someone, with a milk-bread recipe to bring the idea to your own table.

Maple is an ingredient shaped by reduction, weather and patience. A closer look at what it brings to cooking, with a maple rye Old Fashioned and maple-mustard roasted carrots.

Heirloom Fire is where the dinners happen. This is a home for the thinking underneath: food, land, craft, preservation, hospitality and the things the work continues to teach me.