I'm inspired!

I recently finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's new book, Animal Vegetable Miracle. It's about her family's journey of eating only locally grown/raised food for one whole year.  The book inspired me!  In typical Kingsolver fashion, she makes stories about asparagus and zucchini interesting and fun.  (I loved the bit on asparagus so much that I have made a vow to plant an asparagus bush everywhere I live!)  You may think reading about how she raised turkeys sounds boring, but wait till you read about her description of turkey sex, it's rather intriguing!

Her book does not romanticize the work it takes to eat all locally grown/raised food, but it does highlight the feasibility of it.  Here are some random tidbits I took from this book:

• I can easily can tomatoes and freeze some extra produce to help me eat more locally grown vegetables in the winter months.
• I am much more aware of what states/countries the food in my grocery store is coming from (which also is a bit depressing).
• I should not eat asparagus at Christmas like I usually do - only in April and May.
• Pasture raised cows have less cholesterol than ones that are not raised in this way.  (This is good news for me!)
• I can make my own cheese!!  (Mozzarella in 30 minutes...who knew??!!)

To get a taste of the book and her witty writing you can read her Smashing Pumpkins excerpt.  I highly recommend this book - especially as we continue to work on reforming our own Farm Bill.