Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver)

Kingsolver never fails to send me flat in awe-struck wonder at her non-fiction prose and send me reeling from the truths that sink in after a read. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is no different, save for contributions to this book from husband Steven Hopp and daughter Camille Kingsolver. Moving from dry, water-deprived Tucson to verdant farm in the Southern Appalachians, Kingsolver and her family resolve to live on what they can grow in their garden, raise in their chicken and turkey coops and buy locally. What the book becomes is a diary of that experience, including recipes for each season, and a testament to how possible this venture can be. A book club book, we came together on May 3rd over a completely local dinner, determined to change our shopping ways after reading this book and understanding better the distances our food travels to our table and at what cost to our local farms and dependence on oil. I went to the local farmer's market to buy the book club dinner I was hosting. Spinach so crisp, I ate it like lettuce the entire week. Cilantro, long, bushy, so smelly. A thick slap of halibut that melted, flaked when grilled. Asparagus, spicy red potatoes. And wine from Bainbridge Island and Mt. Baker. Over and over I heard from my book club friends how wonderful the meal was . . . and all I can say is that I did very little but cook it. It's the love and work the farmers put into that food that brought out flavor we so miss when we buy sub-quality food from the grocery store.