Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

While I realize it is slightly ridiculous to offer a book review for a book one is only 142 of 352 pages into, I will because thus far Barbara Kingsolver's book ranks up there with Michael Pollen's "Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food" as being one of my favorites.

It chronicles a year her family (husband and 2 daughters) spent living off of whatever was local to their neighborhood, trying to primarily populate their diet with whatever they could grow themselves. That she did this with a pre-teen and teen in the house strikes me as even more astounding. Like Pollen's books she delves into the politics of food in this country and what mass production has done to crops and livestock as well as, and ultimately to, our health. Her writing has made me reflect on my own past and contemplate my future as well.

Growing up we had gardens and I remember living in the winters eating canned tomatoes (which, I'll admit, I hated mostly because they ended up in goulash, one of my least favorite dishes), canned peaches, applesauce and frozen beans, strawberries and other fruits. My job in the bean freezing assembly line was the suck the air out of the plastic bags before handing them to my brother to twirl up and tie with a twist tie. Many summer afternoons were spent at my grandparent's picking their tomatoes or berries or helping weed their garden plots. I see so much wisdom in the way they chose to live and so wish they were around to talk about my own feelings about food and gardening. I long to live in a place where I could have vegetable gardens out my back door.

I feel incredibly fortunate that the DiCecca's are generous in sharing their garden's bounty with us. On Friday I received the first of what will likely be many deliveries of tomatos from their garden. This year I am going to try to hold on and not use them all right up or give them away to see if I can accumulate enough to make sauce that we could freeze and enjoy later.

In all honesty my memory doesn't retain whether I enjoyed helping in the garden as a child, but I certainly think back on it with fond feelings. Partly because it meant family time together and I do vividly recall the feeling of ultimate safety and happiness when my family unit was assembled. I know at least one year my brother and I each had our own mini-plot to tend. My parent's, ever the teachers were probably trying to impart some lesson by making that choice.

The time that it requires to grow a garden is one of the biggest hinderances. It doesn't fit with modern, working life. However, that time is part of what appeals to me. As I reflect more on the life I want next I see value in having a slower pace. I've always been someone who preferred making dinner out of whole food ingredients rather than zapping some frozen concoction in the microwave or ordering out. Cooking takes time, but for me, that time is well spent, letting me unwind from the day. I have always enjoyed going up to my mom's where we have dug in flower beds together. There is something theraputic to me about getting dirt on my hands.

All of that said, the extreme of Kingsolver's choice is not one I aspire to. They ordered up chickens and turkey's to raise and send off to slaughter and ate only foods that were local and in season. However, I do think I'll make the effort to walk to the farmer's market in Arlington this Wednesday and see what's for sale, perhaps basing the second half of my week's dinners on the vegetables I can acquire and maybe investigate the community garden version of local meat farming to see if we could enroll in a farm share for locally grown poultry.

Someday I know we will own a home and no matter where it is, I hope there is a strip of land I can farm to my heart's content.