Some initial thoughts...

OK. Aside from the challenge that I did not declare but am accepting and furthering, I had a small amount of time today, squashed between making truffles (yes, chocolate! I certainly hope chocolate is never villified...) with three of the kids and hearing screaming lyrics from "Jesus Christ, Superstar" (C's new music obsession) in which I had the opportunity to read a few pages.

I have noticed similarities between myself and Barbara:

• I tend to think globally. I see Las Vegas and I can't help but think what a waste in the extravagance. She drinks water and can't help but think she has no birthright to be further robbing the land of its water with her transplanted family. I like that.
• I like the idea of living simply, rurally - I have often dreamed of living at our cottage for the summer, washing clothes in a tub (the kids wear bathing suits the whole time anyway)...
• I want to grow vegetables -- remember I asked for the garden for mother's day, envisioning tomatoes, cucumbers, onions... (apparently, had it come to fruition, I would have had a plethora of salsa)

Key differences:

• I NEVER HAVE. Every year since the beginning of her marriage she returned to the Appalacian property (granted, more as a compromise for her husband). She somehow managed to truncate her daughters' lives so that they had no activities that spilled over into the summer. Is that easier with girls? My boys have baseball through July then football starts first week of August. How to avoid that? Not have them do it, I suppose. Hmmm. Don't think they or their father would go along with that.
• Which leads to the second key difference: BOTH partners, wife and husband, seem in each's own way dedicated to an organic way of living individually, so working out the details together does not seem so mind-blowing. Although picking up and moving permanently across the country is always big. I am not underestimating that. But it seems the last step in a series of joint realizations for which they were searching together. I would not say Don and I are dedicated to organic living, although I would like to think that we are environmentally responsible.
• I am sensing that we may vote differently. Enough said. (But I do not hold it against her).

I did really like the husband's note -- just one dinner a week could drastically change the petroleum cost of food. One dinner a week, by local (organic?) producers. That goes along with my goal of $30 /week Michigan products (although I have a sense that my "Michigan products" is slightly more generous than local organic food. Same general principle, though.

There you go -- I will hopefully read and write more tomorrow. Talk to you then :)

December 28, 2009

So my sister had an epiphany which changed her life sometime during the past year. Enough that it became her theme for all Christmas gifts. And I still don't understand the true depth, because, although some of the results were evident, she gave us all books to explain the meaning. At some point here I should mention the toppic of the epiphany, but perhaps it is obvious by the title of the blog: food. More specifically, something about how the food we eat affects ourselves on both a molecular and a global level. I can only get that far since I haven't read the books yet. But I can say that it has inspired her to cook more than I think she has in her entire life, being the middle child who then ventured to Manhattan.... and that in itself is a good thing.

So the book I received is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life by Barbara Kingslover. In her note, my sister Joc noted that not only did this very book change the way she thought about food, but it changed the way she acted. A book like that is bound to make me think. So in response, here is this blog.

Anyway, I am writing this for you, Joc. Because we don't talk as much as we could. And this way you can get my reactions as I read and learn.

But if this is any sort of omen, the first page I flipped open was talking about the evils of bananas. Can bananas really be evil? I wonder. Bananas saved my life once. Ok, that might be a tad melodramatic, but I have heard Dad tell the story of when, as a toddler, I was imprisoned in the hospital with TUBERCULOSIS and refused to eat anything but mashed bananas. What does that say? And even though you told me the author has a whole section on making concessions, the very first page of the book - the very first paragraph, an excerpt from the book review in the Washington Post, says "you may never be able to eat a (fossil fuel-chomping) banana again." ?!?!?!

Do I dare go forward with this venture???