Book Review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I'm only a hundred pages into this amazing book, but I had to share it now instead of waiting til I finished it.  Barbara Kingsolver is my favorite writer, and I have read her fiction books.  I happened to find the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle on our building's free table and I snatched it up.  It's a memoir of a year in the life of her family during their eat only what food is in season (and preferrable local) project.  Yes, it's somewhat of a cheerleading book on eating local and the slow food movement. But she writes truthfully about her family's struggles and triumphs with the year long commitment they all made.  Kingsolver and her husband Steve have two children, one in third grade and another entering college.  They made this commitment together as a family, not as parents enforcing a rule that must be obeyed.  So their daughters were invested in the process too, even though they had to give up some of their favorite foods, or at least not have access to them all year round. The project is somewhat enlightening to them all, to say the least.

The book offers insight into the factory farms that fill most of our supermarkets with what we Americans generally call meat and produce.  But the information is supplied in such a way that she does not tell you what you should do;  she merely offers the facts and then lets you decide.  She also writes about just how much of an adjustment it was to make the switch to in season food, and how the family celebrates new recipes and enjoys food so much more.  They do have a large garden where they grow their own food, and watch it in anxious anticipation of the harvest that will fill their cooking pots.  They supplement with trips to the farmer's market.  Kingsolver's older daughter contributes essays on her perspective as a young adult to the book. Her younger daughter even starts an organic egg and chicken business so that she can save up to buy a horse. 

And the best part is, there are seasonal menus and recipes in the book and on the website so that you are not lost in a mountain of collard greens and eating corn til it's coming out your ears (no pun intended).  Check it out at www.animalvegetablemiracle.com

Book Review: Made From Scratch by Jenna Woginrich

Advice from real life Bohemian Farmgirl, Jenna Woginrich:

"Don't look at your current situation as a hindrance to living the way you want, because living the way you want has nothing to do with how much land you have or how much you can afford to spend on a new house. It has to do with the way you choose to live every day and how content you are with what you have. If a few things on your plate every season come from the work of your own hands, you are creating food for your body, and that is enough. If that hat on your head was knitted with your own hands, you're providing warmth from a string and that's enough. If you rode your bike to work, trained your dog to pack, or just baked a loaf of bread, let if be enough." (Borrowed from Made From Scratch page 12)

I just finished reading Jenna's hilarious memoir about starting out as a wannbe sheep farmer on rented land in northern Idaho. She's just like the rest of us: she has a day job, she makes mistakes, and she doesn't give up. Jenna's book explains how to (and how NOT to) build a backyard vegetable garden without a green thumb, tend a bee hive (she refers to this learning experience as "the summer I killed 20,000 bees"), raise chickens in spite of her own wolf dogs, mush through a snowstorm with glee, accept the hard truths of raising livestock (even "portable livestock"), make your own clothes, and teach yourself to play stringed mountain instruments. This is homesteading for regular folks, not quit-your-day-job-and-head-for-the-hills farming. It's a book about how to get started NOW and not wait until you have the perfect skills, enough money, enough land, the perfect dog, the perfect vintage truck, etc.

What are you waiting for?