One of the topics on my mind lately is where my food comes from. With gas prices the way they are, I'm probably not alone, as awareness of this issue reaches new heights. Not all that long ago, I happily entered my neighborhood Whole Foods in DC, fully anticipating finding anything and everything I needed with only a vague awareness of if it was in season or not, not to mention where exactly it came from and how many miles it crossed to arrive in the nation's capitol.
The book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver really gave me a wake-up call. I have a lot of Whole Foods visits to atone for. The author and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life - vowing that, for one year, they'd only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. It's inspiring, enlightening and funny. It made me love food even more, and wanting to improve my relationship with it by doing whatever I can to get it from as nearby as possible. A book recommendation is not complete without a fave quote:
Waiting for foods to come into season means tasting them when they're good, but waiting is also part of most value equations. Treating foods this way can help move "eating" in the consumer's mind from the Routine Maintenance Department over to the Division of Recreation. It's hard to reduce our modern complex of food choices to unifying principles, but this is one that generally works: eating home-cooked meals from whole, in-season ingredients obtained from the most local source available is eating well, in every sense. Good for the habitat, good for the body.
The food bounty is plentiful this time of year, so summer is a perfect time to read this book and start eating in season. Bon appetit.
