One of my favorite authors is Barbara Kingsolver. My uncle gave me my first fictional book by her called The Poisonwood Bible. As I was working as a missionary at the time it really caught me up short in some not so pleasant ways and challenge how I viewed my “call”. Since that time I’ve read virtually all of her fiction and non-fiction works and I find something in each one to challenge me to live deeper.
My most recent read of hers was a book called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. I loved it. An excerpt from the dust jacket sums up the premise of the book better than I could:
“This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew…and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air.”
So they worked as a family not only to endeavor to eat locally but mostly by their own hands. Their successes and failures are interesting and at times comical to read and the contributions about the world issues affecting food provided by her husband, Steven L. Hopp, a teacher of environmental studies, and the essays and recipes provided by her her daughter, Camille Kingsolver, really reflect the family nature of the project. The website for the book gives a lot of good resources and information and I’d advise checking it out!
The question I always find myself asking when I read a book that challenges me is how will it change my life and that of my family? So am I growing all my own vegetables and making all my own bread and cheese? Do I keep chickens and kill the turkey I eat for Thanksgiving? Well, no, not exactly. But here’s a few projects our family has started with to eat more locally and sustainably.
- Some friends gave us a hand-me-down breadmaker. As part of our community we buy our flour in 50lb. bags. So making bread for me has become a routine. I don’t get into any exotic bread very often, but our daily bread cost me a whole lot less to bake, has no high fructose corn syrup and with a 5 minute prep time and a one hour express bake can be ready for any meal within the time it takes me to make dinner.
- Yes, I do organic garden but only by the luck of community. I consider myself an apprentice to Christine Sine, another member of our community, and will probably stay in that role for many years to come. To be honest I find the preparing the garden, the clearing and weeding, when everything is empty, more fun in many ways than the actual growing of the vegetable, which in my mind seems extremely backwards. I do have to admit, though, that having an unlimited number of fresh tomatoes exhilarates me. I vary rarely buy tomatoes out of season anymore because they just aren’t the same.
- Yogurt is something else that we make in the house. If that sounds hard it isn’t, you just need to be in the house for a good part of the day. All it takes is milk, old yogurt to get the culture or a yogurt starter, a thickener (like gelatin) if you don’t like it thin, a thermometer, some old glass jars and your oven. I actually make it a gallon at a time, and to give it that fruity flavor, if your family doesn’t like it plain, I just add in a bit of homemade jelly and stir.
Posted by riccikilmer 
The Revolution Starts at Home 