Schooling at Home

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

A Book to Recommend: This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader


About a year ago, I found this book at my university library and read it sometime during the semester. (When did I have the time??) I really get into memoirs every now and again and this one really intrigued me. It's about a woman who is determined to get 100% of her food from her garden and from local sources. That's it. It made me wonder if I could make such a commitment - living without oranges? Ever?? Or coconut or pineapple? Hmm...

Anyway, this story is about her journey to local eating with some yummy sounding recipes that she shares along the way. It's an interesting read that really gets you to think about where your own food comes from. There's a lot of talk about gardening, vegetables, preserving and ways to eat locally.

One downside is that she gets a bit preachy and tedious now and again - to be taken with a big grain of salt if it rubs you the wrong way. She also doesn't go into how eating locally is easier in some areas than others and that there would need to be an adjustment in what we normally eat if we were to eat completely local - variances depending on the climate we live in, were rural, suburban, or urban, etc.

Overall, I found it to be an enjoyable book that helped me see that eating locally can be accomplished.

3 comments:

  1. That sounds really good! It reminds me of a book I read last summer that I LOVED called 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle' by Barbara Kingsolver. It also has some killer recipes and things we make over and over again (like zucchini cookies!).

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  2. Thanks for the book review. I love reading books about things like this. I'm alway looking for that next good read. But I would have to save the reading of it until winter, when thing slow down a bit. Kelly

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  3. I respect this theory, but like you, I like bananas and oranges and they won't EVER grow around here!!

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