Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver with help from her daughter Camile and her husband Steven Hopp is not a book you should read when you have just moved off the farm. It is all about food and like the Omnivore's Dillema advocates eating locally. It makes strong arguments for getting off the petrochemical food chain and bringing it all closer to home, by growing and producing your own food and supporting those around you who do as well. She is not a purist but she and her family did try to eat local food (grown or raised on their own small farm or within a 100 mile radius of their home in Tennessee) with a few exceptions like coffee (who can live without that!) and flour, yeast and a few other things for a year. It all sounds pretty grim but it wasn't and was full of great growing, cooking and eating. I did not know this but Barbara Kingsolver was trained as a microbiologist and has an eye for detail and accuracy( a little like Annie Dillard there). Since completing this book I have been wandering around the yard looking for spots of sunshine and shadow. Time to put in that asparagus bed in the strip along the road.