74th worst for America

Barbara Kingsolver, most widely known for her book THE POISONWOOD BIBLE, is 74th worst for America as written in a book a few years ago. Well, she is a liberal from Kentucky, well educated, and now knowledgeable about organic gardening, having taken her family from Tucson, AZ to western Virginia. This book chronicles the farming life of self-sustenance they followed, and what happened with their farm. 40 acres set in the lush and ripe farming land of the hills provided them with everything from asparagus to tomatoes, zucchini and pumpkins.

This is actually a good guide to what it takes to raise chickens, turkeys, and local food and survive for a year. They planted 200 onion sets, figuring 4 per week. They planted fifty tomato plants, and harvested almost 2 tons of tomatoes! Zucchini is almost a pestulence, and "harvesting" chickens is the right attitude, especially when the roosters are too numerous for any fun at all. Yes, there are disparaging words about corporate farms, without which we would be in sad shape, and everyone can grow their own foods. But the Kingsolver family gave up tropical items like bananas, shrimp, oysters, etc...and seemed to enjoy themselves. Their eldest daughter is at Duke University (Yay!) and their second is young enough that the chicken duty was hers.

There are recipes for frittatas, pizzas, breads, puddings, and the like, and a web site for them: www.animalvegetablemiracle.com. This area of the country is gorgeous, and her husband had bought the farm before they even knew each other. There isn't a lot about the neighbors and friends, but it does include a trip to Italy, to see how they feed themselves as well. This healthy life didn't hurt them a bit, but you can see how labor-intensive it is. The dad made the breads, and Ms. Kingsolver did the bulk of the rest of the cooking. Further, a nutritionist adds his own ideas, like upgrading your bread machine makings to more organic or varied flours (or even nuts and non-grain for allergies), how to be organic in an apartment, etc...) in every chapter.

350 pages isn't bad, but it could be shorter. They also came up with a plant which symbolizes how things appear from the garden in a year, and it follows the ripening period for all fruits and veggies grown in the region. In short, it keeps your attention, gets a little into the history and politics of food, and kept my interest. It does take a while to read, however, and the print is pretty small. If you like food, you will be interested in this. How do you survive the winter without the garden? How to make mozzarella in 30 minutes. How to make corn pudding even if you're nine years old. How can everyone help at meal time? What traditions can be started?