I recently finished reading a very interesting book that I thought readers of this blog might like.  It is called "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life", by Barbara Kingsolver.  I had read The Poisonwood Bible by Kingsolver a few years ago and loved it.  The Poisonwood Bible is a novel about an American missionary and his family, set in Africa in 1959, which follows the family members for the next thirty years.  It is beautifully written and populated by fascinating characters.  "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" is a completely different type of book, but equally notable. 

It is a memoir of a year that Barbara Kingsolver and her family spent living on their farm in Virginia trying to grow most of their own food.  They supplemented with food from neighboring farms and the local farmers market.  The book details what is growing in the garden each month and gives a real sense of eating seasonal foods and the work involved in cultivating and harvesting.  Readers learn about hunting for wild mushrooms, making cheese, raising chickens and turkeys, and canning and freezing food in preparation for winter.  There are discussions of the economics of farming, the use of oil in transporting non-local food, and impacts of government farm policy.

Reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, left me wanting to grow my own food and make more of an effort to frequent farmers markets.  I am more conscious of what foods are in season locally and the real costs of buying food out of season.  I am also left with an increased sense of the impacts of food decisions in our lives, communities, country and planet.