By Shannon Hicks

Patricia and Lester Brooks moved from New York City into Fairfield County in 1956, long before today’s proliferation of globally diverse foods and restaurants. Having lived in New Canaan for 40 years, they have lived through a food revolution.

“When we moved from New York City to Connecticut to root our young family in suburban terrain, one thing we missed was the glorious ethnic food variety of a big city,” they write in the Preface of the second edition of Food Lovers’ Guide To Connecticut. “Even finding good bread locally was a challenge. Ingredients for a Chinese dinner involved a trip to New York’s Chinatown. Favorite herbs that at ubiquitous today, like basil and cilantro, were unavailable locally…

“When we first moved to New Canaan,” they later wrote, “there were perhaps four restaurants in town, only one of high caliber. Now there are more than thirty eateries, some very good, including one Indian, one Japanese, three Pan-Asian, a French bistro, several Italian, and one for seafood. Our little town is by no means unique: Similar changes have taken place in many towns across the state.”

Newtown is certainly one of those towns. We boast two farmers’ markets, offering shoppers the opportunity to go all-organic during the week and traditional on the weekend; we too have our variety of restaurants, and we even have a homegrown vineyard.

Updated over the past two years and released a few weeks ago, Food Lovers’ Guide To Connecticut is an updated edition of the popular book the couple first released in February 2004.

Three Newtown entities make a return in this updated edition (released March 1 and again published by Globe Pequot; ISBN 978-0762741700, paperback, 336 pages, $14.95), and two more are introduced this time around. The write-ups for McLaughlin Vineyard and Shortts’s Farm & Garden have been updated, and the listing for Sandy Hook Village Farmers’ Market has returned.

New this year is a write-up for Ferris Acres Creamery, which opened in 2004. “To understand how good the Ferris ice cream is,” writes the authors, “tasting is believing.”

Also new is a listing for Sandy Hook Organic Farmers’ Market, which is the one that runs behind St John’s Episcopal Church on Tuesdays during summer and early fall.

Of course with 168 additional towns and cities in Connecticut, there is plenty of good food, wine, restaurants and landmark eateries, food festivals and culinary events, and even specialty food shops outside of Newtown’s borders to discover. And that’s where the Brookses come in.

“There’s always something you find and are happy to share with friends,” Mr Brooks said from his home recently. “We’re finding new things all the time.”

The couple began working on the new edition of Food Lovers Guide To Connecticut in February 2006, and were saddened, Mrs Brooks said, “to find that between the first edition and this second edition, some of our favorites went out of business. Restaurants have a short shelf life…

“…but new things are always coming in,” her husband said quickly, finishing the sentence without missing a beat.

“The good news is,” she returned, “we added 40 new restaurants and about 35 new good shops around the state.”

This is far from the couple’s first foray into writing, and not even close to their first outing with food or wine writing.

Patricia Brooks has been the Connecticut restaurant reviewer for The New York Times since 1977, an experience, also described in the Preface, as having “involved sampling, analyzing and reporting about food at more than 1,400 restaurants statewide … [which has led to] delightful discoveries as the restaurant scene has grown in sophistication and diversity.”

Lester Brooks is a “wine writer and oenophile [who has] noted with pleasure the development of a fast-growing wine industry and wine events in our state and increasingly better wine selections in our restaurants statewide.”

The Brookses have also written a number of travel guidebooks — to Spain, Great Britain, Portugal, New England, and New York State. They know their writing, and they know how to research something to find some of the best an area has to offer.

Food Lovers Guide To Connecticut is organized into five chapters: Fairfield Country and Southwest Connecticut (which includes Orange, Seymour, Shelton, and Milford), Northwest Connecticut, Hartford Area & North-Central Connecticut, Northeast Connecticut, and New Haven & Southeast Connecticut. Each chapter opens with a map of the region to be covered, and each chapter includes the categories Made or Grown Here, Specialty Stores & Markets, Farmers’ Markets, Farm Stands, Food Happenings, Learn To Cook, Learn About Wine, Landmark Eateries, Wine Trail, Recipes Etc, and Connecticut’s Best.

The Brookses point out early that Food Lovers’ Guide is not a restaurant guide. It is, they wrote, also a guide that allows readers to locate good sources for wine, cheese, and other favorite ingredients.

“Suppliers and restaurateurs love to tell you where they’re getting some of their supplies,” Mrs Brooks said. “James O’Shea, the owner of West Street Grill in Litchfield, is a great source. He seems to know all the suppliers around and he’s happy to tell you ‘Oh you need to try this cheese’ or ‘You need to try this.’”

The couple also singled out Margaret Chatey, who runs Westford Hills Distillers in Ashford with her husband, as being “wonderful” about offering sources in the northeastern corner of the state, and Chris Prospery, the chef at Metro bis in Simsbury, who was very generous about sharing places that produce foods.

One of Mrs Brooks’ favorite parts of the book is the recipes and tips that have been shared by chefs, vendors, and business owners. The new edition has 39 recipes, from Sally’s Indomitable Pesto Sauce courtesy of Sally Maraventano, the owner-instructor at Cucina Casalinga cooking school in Wilton, to Belgique’s Tarte Tatin, a French-Belgian version of apple pie using one of Connecticut’s favorite crops in a recipe from Pierre Gilissen, a Belgian chocolatier and master baker and pastry maker.

“I think in Connecticut what’s happened is, food has gotten to be such a big deal that the people who are involved are so enthusiastic and they really want to share with people new places and new sources,” she said. “They all seem to encourage each other, and I love to see that.”

Similarly, readers of the first edition of Food Lovers’ Guide To Connecticut were just as quick to share new finds with Patricia and Lester Brooks.

“We had people sending notes in the mail” almost immediately after the first edition’s release, Mrs Brooks said. “We found out about a chocolate place that way and I really think it was a reader who felt very strongly about the ice cream at Ferris Acres that brought them to our attention,” she said.

The book’s size — 6.8 by 5.8 inches — makes its easy to pack in a large purse, or even to tuck into a glove compartment, door pocket, or even into a car’s console so that it’s always handy when you’re driving around the state.