A Year of Food Life

Okay, so I had one of my killer migraines yesterday. I don't get them often, but when I do.... So that means I didn't get to finish my book review of "A Year of Food Life" from last week. (Tuesday is Book Tuesday - trying to set up a pattern here. I'm Type A for those who don't know me.)

It's funny that Book Tuesday (when I'm writing about food) fell on the very day my local CSA opened up their registration. More on that later! Anyway, Barbara Kingsolver, her husband Steve, and daughters Lily and Camille were living in Arizona (Tucson to be exact), living everyday regular lives. Steve had a piece of family property in Southern Virginia that they would visit for summers. (Can you believe it?! Arizona to Virginia - I read that and thought, "Lord? Could you make it any clearer?!) They wanted to do a family experiment of eating only the foods that they knew firsthand the exact origins of, for one year. It helps that they have a family farm just waiting to move onto, but image what a daunting task that would be. Do you have ANY clue where you food comes from? I don't mean Walmart or Kroger. I mean WHERE? Ecuador, Peru, California?

Barbara writes the bulk of the story, month by month, of how eating seasonally affected their lives and buying meats from local farmers and grain from mills changed their outlook on life, nature, etc. Steve offers the hard core commercial facts in what I call Snippet Boxes. These are the bits that make you sit up and realize how terribly wrong we have gone as a consuming public. If you are not an avid reader and don't think you would take the time to read this book. PLEASE, just rent it from the library and only read Steve's Snippets (you can find them easily - only 1 or 2 per chapter and typeset differently). Camille provides wonderful, and EASY, recipes to make from the bounty of your land. And Lily inspired me to get egg-laying hens. I don't have them yet (thank you Brandermill Community Association), but I WILL!

I know, I know! You're saying "I can't grow all my own food!" Blah, blah, me either. But I do grow in little small patches what I can. I suggest you look into the next best thing in your area - the CSA! CSA means Community Supported Agriculture. To keep hardworking family farms afloat and providing us with fantastic foods (and NOT selling out to growing acres of dent corn that no one can eat - or worse! Going bankrupt and losing yet ANOTHER vital piece of local flavor!), the farm will offer shares of the farm to the public. Some are working shares, where you physically help out, but most are financial shares. Farmer Bob will take, let's say, 60 of his 100 acres, and call that portion the Share Farm. He calculates his cost and small profit and divides that number by the number of shares he's offering. So basically, you pay anywhere from $450 to $800 dollars for 16 to 30 weeks of produce.

In my case, it breaks down to about $16 a week for FRESH (most times it's picked the day before pick up), organic, SEASONAL produce. You begin to enjoy things at the height of freshness, experiencing tastes you've never had before. You learn to appreciate new produce that you've never tried before, because it was in your weekly pack. You are not subjected to watered-down hybrid varieties that have virtually NO nutritional impact. The benefits are enormous! You would spend that or more going to a grocery chain. (Oh, and if you can't get into a CSA, please support your farmer's markets. We need a resurgence in this way of life. It may be our only hope of survival as a people.) Why NOT get better produce AND support your local economy?

I could go on an on! Wait till next week when I tell you about "One Raucous Year". More food! I have to go fill out my CSA application.