Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
I was able to make it to the early meeting today. Hooray for me for being on time. It was helpful to be there, too. Just to remember when I am making a big deal out of nothing that important. I was also able to go to the co-op (moisturizer, 2 soy yogurts and some dried mango), walk to the wrong subway stop, walk to the right subway stop, make a nonprofit phone call and make a consultation appointment for Lasik before 10:15a!
Speaking of soy yogurt, I'm in the middle of reading Kingsolver's much-ado'd Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. At first I didn't understand all the hoopla because BIG DEAL, Slow Food, Just Food, green markets and CSAs have been getting so much press - hell, people know what a locavore is now - she's not really inventing the wheel here. In fact, when I first started reading it I thought it was similar to Grub. I still think it's similar to Grub, except there's more of a chronicling an experiment in slow-food living than Grub and actively contains first-person. And that first-person voice is effective. Not that Grub wasn't. I was truly lucky to run into a book-selling/signing in front of the co-op that day or I don't know when I would have purchased it and it was a really important epiphany book for me.
(*Edited: Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder how much of AVM's charm comes from our current fascination with "agritainment", and how much of it will actually inspire people to buy local or raise local. To that point, I'm going to add a link to AVM's reader contribution stories, although they may not be typical of a an average reader?)
So, despite her blatant unveganity, there are a few points that really resonated with me -- her part on milk-drinking (she's lactose intolerant and eats cheese but the facts she mentions are fairly pro-vegan with regards to genetics, although she doesn't take them that way), speaking about the culture shock of meeting people who make cheese as if we've forgotten it's made anywhere (goes for all processed foods, including soy yogurt), the local-farm diner, etc. So I am taking away some things from the book that I hadn't anticipated.
It's always hard to read about people raising and eating animals and the lesser-of-two-evils where the animals are treated well but still seen as commodities and used for human consumption and sent to a rendering plant. Some small farmers do their own killing but some also use rendering plants and those places are vile and the people who work in them are reportedly desensitized, sadistic and vile. (I am going by quotes supposedly from said people about what they do to the animals.)
I almost turned down the sign-up for 2008's CSA but after scanning my co-op aisles for local vegetables (not just USA but "local within 500 miles") I realized that I'd like to give it a go again. Yes, I get busy. Yes, it's a lot of work. Yes, I need more cabbage recipes up my sleeve. But I learned to make quite a few new dishes I'd never made before that are now in my arsenal. And it's true - there is nothing better than local produce. Plus, I think joining for a single share and picking up every other week will make a difference. And it's probably worth the price for the heirloom tomatoes alone. We have until Jan 31st to submit our re-enrollment and then the prices go up and it gets opened to the neighborhood folks who weren't enrolled last season. (attn,
thesaturdaygirl ! - full shares from June - Oct are $445 and half shares/every other week are $235; both include 1 day manning the distribution booth from 8:30- 12 for the season.)
Speaking of soy yogurt, I'm in the middle of reading Kingsolver's much-ado'd Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. At first I didn't understand all the hoopla because BIG DEAL, Slow Food, Just Food, green markets and CSAs have been getting so much press - hell, people know what a locavore is now - she's not really inventing the wheel here. In fact, when I first started reading it I thought it was similar to Grub. I still think it's similar to Grub, except there's more of a chronicling an experiment in slow-food living than Grub and actively contains first-person. And that first-person voice is effective. Not that Grub wasn't. I was truly lucky to run into a book-selling/signing in front of the co-op that day or I don't know when I would have purchased it and it was a really important epiphany book for me.
(*Edited: Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder how much of AVM's charm comes from our current fascination with "agritainment", and how much of it will actually inspire people to buy local or raise local. To that point, I'm going to add a link to AVM's reader contribution stories, although they may not be typical of a an average reader?)
So, despite her blatant unveganity, there are a few points that really resonated with me -- her part on milk-drinking (she's lactose intolerant and eats cheese but the facts she mentions are fairly pro-vegan with regards to genetics, although she doesn't take them that way), speaking about the culture shock of meeting people who make cheese as if we've forgotten it's made anywhere (goes for all processed foods, including soy yogurt), the local-farm diner, etc. So I am taking away some things from the book that I hadn't anticipated.
It's always hard to read about people raising and eating animals and the lesser-of-two-evils where the animals are treated well but still seen as commodities and used for human consumption and sent to a rendering plant. Some small farmers do their own killing but some also use rendering plants and those places are vile and the people who work in them are reportedly desensitized, sadistic and vile. (I am going by quotes supposedly from said people about what they do to the animals.)
I almost turned down the sign-up for 2008's CSA but after scanning my co-op aisles for local vegetables (not just USA but "local within 500 miles") I realized that I'd like to give it a go again. Yes, I get busy. Yes, it's a lot of work. Yes, I need more cabbage recipes up my sleeve. But I learned to make quite a few new dishes I'd never made before that are now in my arsenal. And it's true - there is nothing better than local produce. Plus, I think joining for a single share and picking up every other week will make a difference. And it's probably worth the price for the heirloom tomatoes alone. We have until Jan 31st to submit our re-enrollment and then the prices go up and it gets opened to the neighborhood folks who weren't enrolled last season. (attn,
thesaturdaygirl ! - full shares from June - Oct are $445 and half shares/every other week are $235; both include 1 day manning the distribution booth from 8:30- 12 for the season.)