2010 Reading Log - March

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

I found this book very inspiring and ‘life-path-magnetizing’ (I made that up - I wasn’t quite sure how to explain it).  Anyway I find it compelling to live how she illustrates in the book.  Barbara and her family commit to a year of only eating food produced locally, and then produce a book to share their experiences.  It has inspired me to find a way to buy some land and create a big vegetable garden, with some chickens, and probably some milking and meat cows (and maybe even a horse now that Snowdon is all keen on them).

It’s been interesting to read this book in Costa Rica.  Here all of the produce is local, and much of the other products are too.  So we’re automatically eating a majority of local food.  It made me think back to travelling through Egypt and Jordan.  We joked about how every meal had cucumber and tomato in it.  I left there thinking that they eat a lot of cucumber and tomato.  In hindsight maybe it was just the season for it – and that’s what was available at that time of year. 

Right now we’re eating A LOT of cucumber and tomato, and I was delighted to find a lettuce a few days ago – wow a lettuce.  The things we buy are so fresh – I guess because they’ve been grown locally and hence picked recently.  I’d never put much thought into growing vegetables (Dad just always grew them – I just had to harvest some occasionally for meals).  Most memorable for me is firstly the Kiwifruit season, due to the picking, packing and abundance of them, but you can generally buy them when you want too.  Secondly the feijoa season – so treasured as we can stuff ourselves with them, but only for a few weeks!

Barbara also gives a whole lot of insight into what’s going wrong with food in the states and very nicely pin points the reasons why.  I can see the value of growing and eating locally very clearly and that it does make a big difference globally.  What a valuable book and A LOT of people have read it, in a whole lot of different languages!  Barbara was even put on the ‘100 people who are destroying America list’ for her views.  The people on it are accused of being ‘the cultural elites who look down their snobby noses at ‘ordinary’ Americans.  Wow what a bad arse.  Hah a wholesome home-making vegetable grower! 

Anyway planning has already begun for the Taylor-Siregar farm (now that I think of it I think Rach and Mare may have followed a similar process a few years ago).  I’m already thinking about where, what to grow, which heirloom seeds to order, what wwoofing farms to go to in Europe to train myself up…..how I’m going to save up the necessary $ when I’m in the middle of a travel adventure….!? Exciting!

www.animalvegetablemiracle.com

The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz

Another interesting book, not captivating, but useful.  The main point that I got from it is that there is such an over-abundance of choice in the world now (which results in  people stressing out, wasting time and blaming themselves when they can't get things sorted even though there's so much opportunity), that often it's better to just choose something and be happy with your choice (instead of searching far and wide for the best possible option).  Works for me - I seem to be adopting that strategy much more this year (maybe due to the book - I can't say) and it does simplify things.