Search / 34 posts tagged Animal Vegetable Miracle

I’m currently reading Animal Vegetable Miracle. If you can check it out.

I was at a party this weekend, talking to a friend of a friend who works as a personal chef for a very wealthy figure in entertainment. She works four days a week, from about 10 am to 8 pm. Her responsibilities: making two hot meals a day, for two people. Meals are to be comprised of lean protein, fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

  They call it the Free Books for a Year Sweepstakes, I call it AMAZING!  The winner gets a dozen copies of a twelve specially-selected books; that’s enough to keep your book group busy for a year (or more if you take a summer hiatus)!!

If you were to meet me on the street, you might get the impression that I’m a snob. I’m really not; it just takes me a long time to warm up to people, and it takes even longer for me to establish a long-lasting friendship.

In continuing our discussion of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I want to turn to the obstacles that often stand in the way of our choosing to eat sustainably. While it can be easy to read about how other people switched to organic or local food habits, making that transition in our own lives can prove to be a challenge.

As I continue my struggle to lose weight and change my eating habits, I keep my eyes open for examples of interesting people who have continued to "evolve" over time. I know I am not alone. How we produce, process and consume our daily bread (food), is a hot topic.

Kate and I just had the yummiest lunch! It’s fun now because we can eat together (she’s eating finger foods instead of purees — and she can eat pretty much everything — of course, we’re not eating any grains yet). Anyway, I put some bacon grease in a pan, then threw in some of the leftover Chicken Cacciatore with the chicken stock and tomato sauce.

"Take a minute to study this creation – an imaginary plant that bears over the course of one growing season a cornucopia of all the different vegetable products we can harvest. We’ll call it a vegetannual ..." As Barbara Kingsolver and her family embark on a year of living off the land, they realize that they will be eating whatever the land is offering at that particular time of year.

Have you received your $600 from Uncle Sam yet? I haven’t, but expect it to show up any day now. Marketers in my area are expecting that check too, as evidenced by a recent surge of advertising, encouraging consumers to spend – even cash – their tax rebate checks at one store or another.

It is a by-product of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that my enthusiasm for my vegetable and herb garden has grown by leaps and bounds. I have a small raised bed garden that is only about 68 sq feet. But I have so much packed into a small space.