Miss Booky Pants

     Normally I don't have any particular theme to my course of pleasure reading. Of course I have "categories" on my bookshelf - horses, art stuff, novels, Calvin and Hobbes anthologies - but nothing has come close to the amount of reading I have done of late on (I'll label it after my internet bookmark of the same name) Farmy Things. This encompasses everything from people who start farms to people who think about food to people who like to eat. Call it what you will - the Slow Food movement, Farmer's Marketeering, dirty hippie talk (shakes fist) - but I can't get enough of it. And I want you to read these books, too. And then I want to talk about them with you.

     There's something to be said for the practicality of these books and this way of thinking. It's a sort of do-it-yourselfery that comes during a time of increasing industrialization, technical takeover, and zombie apocalypse anxiety. For me, it has recently become even more entwined in my life for vegetarian concerns and how to eat in the most logical, moral, and ecologically friendly way. So for whichever is your particular concern, I hope you read these books (cue Reading Rainbow theme music):

The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert

This is the book that started it for me. Elizabeth Gilbert (more famously known for Eat, Pray, Love) gives us a glimpse into the world of a man who charts the course of basic human civilization for himself. He lives in a teepee, makes his clothing out of animal skin, eats from the wild, and eventually acquires his own little slice of natural paradise. There's also a smattering of his emotional pitfalls, which only makes this book more enjoyable to read.



The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball
Oh, I love this book. I love it so much. Here is the personal memoir of a self-described city girl who gives up the excitement and ease of NYC to make a home and a whole-diet CSA farm with her country boy husband. I think this was my first exposure to the idea of vegetarian gone locavorian. More on that later.




 
Growing a Farmer by Kurt Timmermeister
A restauranteur turned farmer in search of the perfect food to serve his customers and himself. I would love to go to his onsite restaurant one day.






The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
How had I not known about Michael Pollan before? His books were recommended to me by my good friend and partner-in-obsessive-food-research, Siobhan. He's the go-to guy if you want to understand where food comes from, and what you need to consider in eating healthy, ethically and eco-friendly. I don't know that he ever takes a strong stand for one particular avenue, but he raises and explores the questions of hunting, foraging, and farming. A must-read.



Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
A recommendation from another small farmer, this book is a lovely combination of memoir, statistics, and recipes. A family moves from the parched, water-importing land of Arizona to the lush hills of Appalachia to attempt a year of local food eatery. The way Kingsolver describes her relationship with asparagus had me eating it ravenously for days. This book shows not only that everything has its season, but it also blew my mind 180 degrees to consider the effects of vegetarianism in ways that I had not previously considered. Again, more on that later. Comes with a neat website, too! www.animalvegetablemiracle.com

Other excellent things on this topic:

www.animalvegetablemiracle.com
The recipes, the farm, and a pretty web design!
www.eatwild.com
Find sources for local food in your neck of the woods.
www.urbanfarmonline.com
How to farm in small spaces. Rooftop gardens, growing in containers, chickens in the city?
http://www.thehealthyeverythingtarian.com/
A fellow blogger on this topic. She's funny, too!
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/
This guy's documentary "No Impact Man" smacked me upside the head and woke me up without rattling me to anxiousness like some docs can. It's one family's crusade to live "no impact" for a year. A terracotta refrigerator, a coffee-addicted wife, and the evolution they undergo make this highly watchable. Do it.

On my list of future reading...

Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
The Vegetairan Myth by Lierre Keith
Carnivore Chic by Susan Bourette

Have others for me? Read any of these yourself? Leave a comment!