Things I've read lately

1. The Isabella Blow profile in New York magazine.

2. Confessions of a Teen Sleuth. It's a parody of Nancy Drew and a quick, fun read. I interviewed the author recently about her upcoming thriller and she's great, one of the very few pieces I've written where I wished I had a lot more space to write about her. All of the books she's written have been wildly different from all of the others: a hippie handbook, self-help book for superheroes, a memoir when she was 24 and now a really dark, edgy thriller. She made a great comment about deciding to make a living as a writer being an "assholish" thing to declare, which quote I did not use in the article and have filed away in the same mental folder as my memory of Barbara Taylor Bradford telling me in her ultra-posh accent that the sex scenes in her books "are not about the size of the penis, but what he's thinking while he uses it."

Another recent interview that I enjoyed was Sarah Andrews, a geologist and author who wrote a mystery set in Antarctica, where she traveled for several months to do research. The National Science Foundation has an Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, which provides grants for people who need to go there for non-scientific research reasons. How cool is that? It makes me want to come up with a project I could submit a proposal for. Last month? The month before? when I wrote the piece, she had extensive journals and photographs on her website chronicling her time there, which were awesome, but I couldn't find that section just now when I was looking, so she may have taken it down now that the book has been released. I haven't read it yet, but I have a copy and I will.

3. Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle, which I've been meaning to write about for a few weeks now. From the site: "Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, this book (released May 2007) tells the story of how our family was changed by one year of deliberately eating food produced in the place where we live."

There's been a lot written in the last few years about the political and environmental and personal effects of eating locally produced food, by loads of writers far more knowledgeable on the subject than me. I just googled "eating local" and came up with pages and pages of thoughtful, interesting links. One of the reasons why I haven't written about the book before is that I feel like I should write a real review of it, where I tie it into the larger picture of food choice as political statement and quote Rush and Chomsky on the topic of why exempting yourself from the decision process is still a decision. This mythical real review would discuss what I liked about the book (a lot! loads! all of the naturalism stuff and much of the why-eat-local discussion) and where I thought it was weak (arguments about eating locally and organically being as cheap as not; if I had a garden somewhere with a long growing season and a huge freezer and a full-time, successful writer's flexible hours, maybe. in my current situation, not even in the same universe.), but I just haven't the mental acuity to put it all into words  and I don't think I'm well versed enough on the subject to do it justice so I'm just putting out a half-assed write-up and a long quote.

I would definitely recommend it highly. I keep thinking about it, remembering her discussion about how to start (and keep) an asparagus bed, or how to look for morels, or the absolutely riveting chapter about getting her turkeys to breed. That one is worth the price of admission, no question. Also, she talks about making their own cheese, which is something I've read up on in the past and have been meaning to try. I really love fresh mozzarella and when I lived in Brooklyn, there were plenty of places near my apartment where I could get the good stuff. This part of Queens, not so much. If I could make it myself, I'd be a happy, happy girl.

My favorite thing about the book, though, is reading about how much more connected they all felt to their food, the way that the process of growing the food or sourcing something locally made them an integral part of the food's production, not just the consuming entity. The following excerpt really resonated with me and I typed it out before I returned the book to the library. I forgot to write down the page number though — mea culpa!

"Once you start cooking, one thing leads to another. A new recipe is as exciting as a blind date. A new ingredient, heaven help me, is an intoxicating affair. I've grown new vegetables just to see what they taste like: Jerusalem artichokes, edamame, potimarrons. A quick recipe can turn slow in our kitchen because of the experiments we hazard. We make things from scratch just to see if we can. We've rolled out and cut our pasta, raised turkeys to roast or stuff into link sausage, made chutney from our garden. On high occasions we'll make cherry pies with crisscrossed lattice tops and ravioli with crimped edges, for the satisfaction of seeing these storybook comforts become real.

"A lot of human hobbies, from knitting sweaters to building model airplanes, are probably rooted in the same human desire to control an entire process of manufacture. Karl Marx called it the antidote to alienation. Modern business psychologists generally agree, noting that workers will build a better car when they participate in the whole assembly rather than just slapping on one bolt, over and over, all the tedious livelong day. In the case of modern food, our single-bolt job has become the boring act of poking the thing in our mouths, with no feeling for any other stage in the process. When I ponder the question of why Americans eat so much bad food on purpose, this is my best guess: alimentary alienation. We can't feel how or why it hurts. We're dying for an antidote."

4. I'm tired. I'll write about more books later.

Comments

[Natalie]

One of my favorite books about Antarctica is Sara Wheeler's Terra Incognita--she also was able to go there on the artist and writer program--and it's just an incredible book. It made me want to think of a proposal so I could go down there, too--I long for the Antarctic, especially in the heat of summer.

[melissa]

hmm...i enjoyed 'animal, vegetable, miracle' as well, but also had some issues with it. mainly, she just talked about it like it was the easiest thing ever to do. you never really see them struggle in the book with this project they've taken on. never see them lamenting a food they can't eat due to their self-imposed restrictions. never seem to truly struggle with the huge farming tasks they have. not that i would wish a harder experience on them, but i just felt like it was almost a fairy tale telling of eating local - nice, but nothing like my own reality. i guess i just felt like they seemed a bit too pleased with themselves about the whole thing, and it left me slightly cold, even though i really did enjoy the book. and this is petty, but the little chapter ends by her daughter drove me nuts! :)

[carolyn]

i love the "poisonwood bible" but i do not find myself interested in her nonfiction. in her "bean" books even, i felt she was a little preachy on the subject of the environment.