For Linda Engel, a garden is more than a summer pleasure. It is a connection to family, travel and the simple satisfaction of turning something grown at home into a meal shared with people she loves.
Long before she was preserving tomatoes or writing cookbooks, Linda built a career in international sales, traveling the world at a time when young women were still uncommon in her field. Her father, a successful businessman, taught her to value reliability, relationships and doing a job well.
“My travels gave me a love for our beautiful world and the various countries, people, traditions, and foods,” Linda says. Those experiences still show up in her cooking, where international flavors mingle with ingredients grown much closer to home.
Gardening, however, was part of Linda’s life even earlier. She grew up in a family where homegrown food and home cooking were the norm. At 17, she started a houseplant business, selling plants she grew in a greenhouse her father built beside their San Diego home. She later earned an associate degree in general agriculture, dreaming of someday having an organic farm.
Life took her elsewhere for a while, but the dream never disappeared. Today, her organic garden brings it full circle.
“It’s so joyful to watch the plants grow from a seed to a vegetable that I make a meal with or eat fresh off the plant,” she says.
As summer fades, Linda’s attention shifts from growing to saving the harvest. Though canning is a traditional choice, she prefers freezing and drying. Blackberries, elderberries and raspberries become frozen syrups or are saved whole, while Western Slope peaches are sliced and frozen for winter cobblers, crisps and peach ice cream.
Vegetables get equally practical treatment. Linda roasts tomatoes in five-pound batches and freezes them for tomato soup, dries Anaheim and cayenne peppers, roasts and freezes poblanos, and chops extra bell peppers for later meals. Herbs are air-dried or transformed into pesto and chimichurri.
“Start small and simple. Start with a food that you love,” she advises anyone new to preserving.
That was essentially how her first cookbook, Garden to Table Cooking, began. After finding her countertop overflowing with tomatoes and basil, Linda started preparing and freezing produce in ways she already enjoyed eating. The following season, she realized she wished she had written the recipes down. So she did.
Year by year, the collection grew until one of her girls suggested she write a cookbook. Garden to Table Cooking followed, reflecting the fresh, flavorful meals Linda makes at home.
Her second book, RV Dining, grew from another practical question. After buying a camper van in 2022, Linda wondered how she would cook fresh meals with one burner, a small refrigerator and little prep space. The resulting book offers simple meals designed for compact kitchens but equally useful at home.
For Linda, preserving the harvest is less about stocking a freezer than extending the season’s pleasures. By winter, those frozen tomatoes can become a steaming bowl of soup, summer peaches return in a warm cobbler, and jars of pesto bring the garden back to the table.
It is a rhythm she knows well: grow what you love, use what you have and share the bounty.
You can grab a copy of RV Dining and Garden to Table Cooking at Outside The Box, AdiLuna Boutique, Carousel Gift Shop, and Malara Gardens. Mason Jar Lifestyle (online) and 5280 Sprinter Service offers copies of RV Dining only.