It is with sadness that we bid farewell to the Mississippi Market book club. They are bowing out after poor attendance numbers. With everything that must pass we should remember to take something with us. I suggest that we work hard to encourage friends and acquaintances to see the value in reading and community. Book clubs are an opportunity not only to learn, but to turn that learning into thought and action. Let us take this moment to set aside the time to fully support the Linden Hills Coop book club in Minneapolis and the Harmony Coops book club in Bemijdi!
I know that personally, I am really excited about this book. Eating locally is one of those things that many of us are aware of and strive to do when convenient and/or practical. But when someone decides to take on a moral ideal as a way of life, things get interesting. Certainly we will all be able to find learning and inspiration in Smith and MacKibbon's experiment with eating locally for a year. Possibly, we might also be able to challenge and encourage each other to do the same.
The August Simple, Good and Tasty book club at the Linden Hills Coop is meeting on Wednesday, the 31st at 6:30. You can call the Coop (612-922-1159) and order the book for a 20% discount up until the 24th of August!
For those of you in the Bemijdi area, the meeting will be at Sparkling Waters on Thursday, the 25th at 5:30.
Don't forget to check out betterworldbooks.com for used copies of the book and email me for the discount code if you are part of our wonderful book clubs!
The book was released with different covers and slightly different names...
Here is a summary of the book, Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet by Alisa Smith and JB MacKinnon.
The remarkable, amusing and inspiring adventures of a Canadian couple who make a year-long attempt to eat foods grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of their apartment.
When Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon learned that the average ingredient in a North American meal travels 1,500 miles from farm to plate, they decided to launch a simple experiment to reconnect with the people and places that produced what they ate. For one year, they would only consume food that came from within a 100-mile radius of their Vancouver apartment. The 100-Mile Diet was born.
The couple's discoveries sometimes shook their resolve. It would be a year without sugar, Cheerios, olive oil, rice, Pizza Pops, beer, and much, much more. Yet local eating has turned out to be a life lesson in pleasures that are always close at hand. They met the revolutionary farmers and modern-day hunter-gatherers who are changing the way we think about food. They got personal with issues ranging from global economics to biodiversity. They called on the wisdom of grandmothers, and immersed themselves in the seasons. They discovered a host of new flavours, from gooseberry wine to sunchokes to turnip sandwiches, foods that they never would have guessed were on their doorstep.
The 100-Mile Diet struck a deeper chord than anyone could have predicted, attracting media and grassroots interest that spanned the globe. The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating tells the full story, from the insights to the kitchen disasters, as the authors transform from megamart shoppers to self-sufficient urban pioneers. The 100-Mile Diet is a pathway home for anybody, anywhere.
"Call me naive, but I never knew that flour would be struck from our 100-Mile Diet. Wheat products are just so ubiquitous, "the staff of life," that I had hazily imagined the stuff must be grown everywhere. But of course: I had never seen a field of wheat anywhere close to Vancouver, and my mental images of late-afternoon light falling on golden fields of grain were all from my childhood on the Canadian prairies. What I was able to find was Anita's Organic Grain & Flour Mill, about 60 miles up the Fraser River valley. I called, and learned that Anita's nearest grain suppliers were at least 800 miles away by road. She sounded sorry for me. Would it be a year until I tasted a pie? "
Summary from betterworldbooks.com.
Lawrence Black is a writer and editor at Simple, Good and Tasty. He can be reached at lawrence@simplegoodandtasty.com.
