Books & Media

I’ve heard or read Michael Pollan’s words so many times by now, if we ever were to meet, it’d feel like catching up with a familiar acquaintance. Nevermind he has no idea who I am, and aside from his positions on food and agricultural systems I don’t really know much about the man; he has a conversational and folksy style that conveys what he says is just plain truth, and he’s saying it because he wants what’s best for us.

A locally-produced film has been stirring up plenty of controversy in Minnesota’s agricultural and education communities. “Troubled Waters: A Mississippi River Story” is a documentary produced by the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum about pollution and water contamination in the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico.

I grew up in rural Minnesota, where my parents have a big back yard with an abundant vegetable garden, and where every summer brings a plethora of tomatoes, peppers, and onions. My mom is a canner, and she taught me there's really only one way to deal with all of these summer foods: canning. My mom spends plenty of time in the kitchen in August and September, peeling, chopping, and stewing the season's bounty. After all is said and done, several clean, hot jars of salsa sit on towels on the kitchen counter. My mom waits in the other room, listening for the sealing “pop,” counting to be sure each jar has properly sealed itself.

In honor of Fair Trade month, October's Simple, Good, and Tasty book club selection is Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee. In the book, author Dean Cycon -- founder of Dean's Beans Organic Coffee, activist, and entrepreneur -- describes the many issues and implications around producing fair trade coffee in Africa, Central America, South America, and Asia. Javatrekker is a fantastic mix of travelogue and social commentary, with a healthy dose of history, politics and economics.

Continuing our bookclub this month, we'll be diving into the gap. The food gap, that is. September’s Simple, Good and Tasty book club pick. Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty, by author Mark Winne addresses a vast array of political, social and economic issues around food.

Poverty. Food insecurity. A racist, classist, sexist food system. Issues of food justice. Urban supermarket abandonment and food deserts. And the overlapping and connecting of obesity, hunger and poverty. Tricky, complex and difficult issues. Wondering how to jump into the conversation? Or where to even begin? I was too, until I picked up September’s Simple, Good and Tasty book club pick. Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty, by author Mark Winne is turns out to be an enlightening place to start.

Told from Winne’s personal experiences as a boy growing up in rural (read: farm-filled) New Jersey and as a new adult resident in Hartford, Connecticut, the book allows readers to connect to these food issues in a truly personal way. And challenges you to learn more and act accordingly.

It’s the locavore’s dilemma: there’s a staggering amount of information out there these days on how to “eat local,” but the resources themselves aren’t necessarily fine-tuned to one’s particular locale. I may share similar principles with a local food lover in San Francisco, but we certainly do not share the same growing season or farmers markets. So if I prefer a tomato from my own backyard over one shipped halfway across the country, shouldn’t I also prefer a cookbook with local roots?

I’m not generally prone to fear, but two pages into Maryn McKenna’s Suberbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA, a chill ran down my spine. McKenna opens her book with a story about a teenager named Tony who scraped his elbow after taking a tumble in the school gym. His elbow healed, but days later his left knee began to swell and throb. He developed a fever and body aches. Bay the time he was taken to a hospital, Tony was in septic shock. The ICU staff pumped him full of drugs and surgeons sliced through his body, draining infection from his hand, knee and thigh that reached all the way to the bone. “They told me he was the sickest child on that ICU,” his mother recalled. “They didn’t expect him to live.”

August is harvest time for grains. Last week I had the good fortune of spending two days at Welcome, Minnesota's Whole Grain Milling Co. where they take a number of grains from organic beginnings to a co-op or grocery store shelf near you. I observed the oat harvesting process, but it was owner Doug Hilgendorf's words that made the biggest impression on me. Watch and see if they strike you the same way.

How many times have you unsuspectingly picked up an amazing cookbook, tuned into the Food Network, or flipped through a copy of Bon Appétit and found yourself with a rumbling stomach and watering mouth? Well, this month’s Simple, Good and Tasty book club pick is just about guaranteed to put you in the same state.