Books & Media

CALLING ALL ASPIRING FARMERS AND EVERYONE WHO EATS MEAT 

 

Sometimes a film just needs to be seen. It is hard to imagine more important issues that those that involve our food system and amazingly, we have been blessed in this country with all kinds of eye-opening food films and documentaries, from Food Inc. and King Corn to Super Size Me. Now we can add American Meat to the list. 

At first glance, Ripe may look like just another cookbook. All you have to do is open it up to see the difference. This book is alive with color and for me is very evocative and strangely alluring. I wanted to dive in, to read, to go shop for food and, well, maybe to cook (actually, I just wanted to eat). So, in short, look at this book and then go out to eat. Ok, perhaps that's a little shallow.

 

Last year I decided to approach New Year’s Resolutions in a different way: I would make a list of things to accomplish and to learn. I focused on just a few things that I enjoy, but seldom approach in a dedicated way: crafting, writing and cooking. My list included things I knew I could easily skate through the entire year without actually doing, unless I had something prodding me…like my pride. I printed out my list – in a big colored font nonetheless – and posted it around the house. That list lived above the sewing machine, by my desk and inside a kitchen cabinet door. 

My list looked something like this:

Dye sock yarn with Kool-Aid. Cook one new recipe a week. 52 recipes. Write more. Read more.Finish four unfinished projects. 

 

When Jennifer Reese lost her job, she decided to economize in the kitchen, something she'd been writing about already on her popular food blog, Tipsy Baker. She started the blog to test and review the many cookbooks in her home. Along the way, though, that testing made her curious about what can be made better and less expensively at home.

I know lots of food nerds who read cookbooks for fun. Farmstead Chef is one that might be sitting on the coffee tables and nightstands of those same nerds. John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist of Browntown, Wisconsin, have made sure that their charming book is full of stories from local farmers who are living their dreams on the land. This is definitely the part of the book that captured my attention. From success stories of local farmers finding their niche to articles about finding inspiration when faced with a CSA box full of daikon radishes, this book radiates with the idea of shared learning and community. Even the recipes have nice, personal introductions explaining why they love them or which farmer contributed to the dish.

Hippocrates once said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. Conduct a search for “food as preventative medicine” and you won’t yield much of a discussion, nor enlightenment. This is surprising given the harrowing facts about Americans’ addiction to bad foods and the resulting astronomical bill we have been so duly served by our health care system. One would think that discussions centered around the use of food to prevent and/or cure disease and ailments suffered by so many would be plentiful, but unfortunately this is not the case. 

 

It isn't very often that I use a cookbook. I tend to gaze at them now and then, often for inspiration more than to study how something is done or to check measurements. Therefore, I am surprised at what I am about to say: I love The Northern Heartland Kitchen and since it arrived in the mail, nary a day has gone by when neither my wife nor I has picked it up.

It’s been a while since Food, Inc. and FRESH, and their cousins King Corn and Fast Food Nation, came on the scene – hailing from a family of films that have delved into the complexities of our modern food system, tackled the interconnected web that includes corn subsidies, industrial farming, obesity and environmental degradation, and lauded various solutions including agricultural policy reform, sustainable farming methods, community gardening, and eating, as Michael Pollan and many others have recommended, “real food.” If you’ve been jonesing for your food movie fix, you’re in luck.

Despite the familiarity of the following story, I promise, it is fiction...kind of...

 

It all began early one morning with the idealism that comes from a good nights sleep, a cup of coffee and a good book. I'm pretty sure that the haze of quixotism carried over into the heat of the day, all the way to the amassing of humanity called a "state fair". What finally broke the spell was something akin to a compost sandwich, which eventually my olfactory receptors tied to grease, humanity and manure. I had arrived.

Often, when I mention our CSA to people unfamiliar with Community Supported Agriculture and I explain how a CSA works, they express astonishment at the high cost of these weekly vegetables. With each year of CSA participation, though, I feel less and less interested in justifying my choice. When someone asks, “Isn’t that really expensive?” I shrug and say, "it depends on how you look at it."  Now, for people who want to argue the point further, I have a book to recommend.