In all of the discussion about local food, local business, and local farms, how do you really know what it means to "go local". I think that a good place to start would be with someone who has really lived it. Someone who took the challenge of living local with almost no budget, but all of the skill to take local food and use it to the fullest. This is exactly what Robin Mather has done in "The Feast Nearby: How I lost my job, buried a marriage, and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering and eating locally (all on $40 a week)".
The book is truly a testament of what can happen if you have no other real, good options. You learn as you go, and if you are kind, you share what you learned with the rest of us. Not only that, you get real lessons and real recipes so that if you decide to eat local, raise chickens, and meet your farmers, this book can help get you there.
Not ready to go all out, consider the fact that this book contains the encouragement to anyone who has had to live on a food budget, but wanted to eat like a gourmet. When I consider what eating on $40 a week looks like, its grim. Now, however, there is yet another person telling us to hold on to hope, do it yourself and at the same time, change the world for the better. I simply love knowing that so many folks are advancing the simple, good, tasty and local food movement.
In Minneapolis, the SGT book club at the Linden Hills Co-op is meeting this Wednesday, February the 29th, from 6:30 to 8:30. All are welcome to come and join in the discussion.
From Amazon.com
Within a single week in 2009, food journalist Robin Mather found herself on the threshold of a divorce and laid off from her job at the Chicago Tribune. Forced into a radical life change, she returned to her native rural Michigan.
There she learned to live on a limited budget while remaining true to her culinary principles of eating well and as locally as possible. In The Feast Nearby, Mather chronicles her year-long project: preparing and consuming three home-cooked, totally seasonal, and local meals a day--all on forty dollars a week.
With insight and humor, Mather explores the confusion and needful compromises in eating locally. She examines why local often trumps organic, and wonders why the USDA recommends white bread, powdered milk, and instant orange drinks as part of its “low-cost” food budget program.
Through local eating, Mather forges connections with the farmers, vendors, and growers who provide her with sustenance. She becomes more closely attuned to the nuances of each season, inhabiting her little corner of the world more fully, and building a life richer than she imagined it could be.
The Feast Nearby celebrates small pleasures: home-roasted coffee, a pantry stocked with home-canned green beans and homemade preserves, and the contented clucking of laying hens in the backyard. Mather also draws on her rich culinary knowledge to present nearly one hundred seasonal recipes that are inspiring, enticing, and economical--cooking goals that don’t always overlap--such as Pickled Asparagus with Lemon, Tarragon, and Garlic; Cider-Braised Pork Loin with Apples and Onions; and Cardamom-Coffee Toffee Bars.
Mather’s poignant, reflective narrative shares encouraging advice for aspiring locavores everywhere, and combines the virtues of kitchen thrift with the pleasures of cooking--and eating--well.
Lawrence Black is a writer and editor at Simple, Good and Tasty. He can be reached at lawrence@simplegoodandtasty.com. He has lately been consuming large quantities of hot peppers, so it may be advisable to stay at least three feet away...unless you are cold.
