Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Last Thursday, I attended a book discussion in Northern New Jersey as an informal "guest speaker" on Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, being as how I live this life every day. My sister-in-law asked if we could arrange our winter visit around her book club, and I was pleased to be able to do so and serve as an ambassador of sorts for local eating.

There I sat in a room full of women who live a far fancier lifestyle than I, most of whom, I'm willing to bet, spent more on their hair and nails in the past month than I've spent in the past 5 years or so. Of course, that's not hard to do, considering Jim doesn't charge me for the infrequent trims, and the occasional henna doesn't cost very much. Nails... fuhget about it (said with my best Brooklyn accent). Several have au pairs and fancy jobs in New York City.

Yes, I was out of my element, but having a blast nonetheless.

There was far more eating and drinking of wine than discussion of the book, but I think we had some meaningful moments looking at the possibilities of local eating as well as small, but simple changes folks could make in their purchasing. We talked about CSA's, which most had never heard of, and I told them about localharvest.org, a great place to find local farms and products. We talked a bit about buying meat by the side, which can easily be split among several people to share costs and minimize storage, allowing for custom butchering and lower prices for premium cuts. We talked about purchasing in bulk through buying clubs like United Natural and Organic Foods, which again can be split among members co-op style if folks don't want 50 lbs. of sugar at one time, for instance.

What we didn't talk about are the advantages to having bulk food storage in case of emergency, something Kingsolver gets around to by the end of the book. In fact, we didn't have a chance to talk at all about the global warming/ peak oil implications of the book or why Kingsolver feels such urgency about producing her own food and buying locally. I would have liked to hear whether folks in the book club were aware of the concept of peak oil and what they thought about it.

Several of these women were directly impacted by 9/11, so I wondered what their thoughts were on emergency preparedness and whether having a well-stocked pantry and local food sources would feel more practically reassuring than the plastic wrap and duct tape solutions that circulated shortly after 9/11 (never mind the woefully inadequate 3 days of food—remember Katrina?). I wondered, specifically, whether these women had thought much about feeding their families during an emergency and how that might look if the impending economic crisis looming over Wall Street were to result in bread and grocery lines reminiscent of the Great Depression.

JP Morgan's weekend buy-out of Bear Stearns ushers in governmental economic strategy unseen since those dark days, as that looming shadow grows larger and more menacing every day. I wondered, for instance, whether these women felt this menace even more acutely than I in some ways because of their proximity to Wall Street and a lifestyle driven by credit and big business. Eliot Spitzer may be the great scapegoat of the day, as persecution arises out of a much needed distraction as much as sweet revenge. Nothing quite like a juicy scandal to keep folks' minds off failing credit.

But I digress....

Much of our time early on was spent discussing my family's lifestyle choices, ranging from farming to homeschooling. Folks seemed fascinated by the idea that we grow most of our own food and wondered how we'd gotten to this place and why I linked farming and homeschooling in my mind. I talked a bit about wanting to eat well and touched on the idea of self-sufficiency and becoming more independent of larger cultural systems like schools and grocery stores. We also delved a bit into GMO foods, and I recommended the book Seeds of Deception or the documentary The Future of Food for folks interested in learning more about the issue.

Most folks in the room that evening had never heard of Monsanto or GMOs or the problems with "good" companies like Horizon, so I think if nothing else Kingsolver and I planted some seeds that night that may cause several of those readers to consider more carefully and critically the sources of their food as well as what goes in it. They've already circulated several links amongst themselves and researched the possibility of joining a local CSA. Hooray for little ripples!

Food for the evening featured deviled eggs from our farm and chicken salad sandwiches made from one of our free-range broilers in addition to several other local delights such as Italian bread and fresh mozzarella cheese. One touch everyone seemed to appreciate were the half-dozen eggs I brought for each member to take home, giving them a taste of free-range, heritage eggs that are both aesthetically and gastronomically pleasing. Hopefully that'll hook 'em for good!