Ok, she didn’t really, and even if I somehow, by reason of insanity, thought that she actually did, I would have to be angry with other writers as well, since it’s all the rage these days to write a memoir/how-to/political commentary book about eating locally for a length of time, and the difficulties this adventure entails.
But her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, is one I am especially thrilled about. BK has been one of my favorite writers since high school (she’s a biologist/activist/AND a novelist!), and I can’t wait to read it, but couldn’t seem to muster up the power to dish out the twenty-six big ones at Bookpeople the other day. I’m pinching pennies for the time being. But besides that, I’ve decided to wait and read my other six books that I’m reading simultaneously, especially since I just finished a book exactly like hers: Micheal Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I totally loved until he sort of lost me with that last chapter devoted to a sort of bourgeouis dinner party, complete with pasta mixed with freshly-gathered morel mushrooms and a pate from the liver of a wild pig.
Ok, I know, I know, given everything Pollan has done for the local food movement, who cares. That last chapter wasn’t even really FOR me, I know. Just because I can’t hire some fancy-pants gourmet mushroom hunter doesn’t mean NO ONE can’t. Really, he can do whatever he wants; he’s Micheal Pollan, after all, and he’s a power to be reckoned with. After his book and a Pollan-penned New York Times article came out tearing organic-industrial giant Whole Foods to smithereens, he scared the bejeezus out of Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey, so much so that Whole Foods has since made some sort of vow to carry more local stuff. I have yet to see such action, but they’re under fire, and I have no doubt it will happen.
I also finished Jessica Prentice’s Full Moon Feast, also a lovely book. She’s coined the word “locavore” (a person who eats locally), has a lot of interesting ideas about making/preserving food, and her book is swamped with folklore and history. It’s not fantastically written, but I’m highly critical about that sort of thing, so maybe it wouldn’t bother some people.
However, BK has never failed me. Her essays are so good they can make a girl cry. Well-make ME cry, anyway. (Don’t get any crazy ideas, I’m just talking a single tear or two.) Her syntax is beautiful, her subjects profound. If Micheal Pollan is the at-the-moment greatest crusader, Kingsolver is the local food movement’s high poetess.
And one last note to cap off this food media-saturated blog entry: the other night Alex and I rented Fast Food Nation. I can probably write a whole entry on why I hated this movie, but I’ll instead just end this entry with the tip not to rent it. Some guy had this to say on the comments portion of the Rotton Tomatoes website: “This movie just made me feel…BAD.” Well, it’s not exactly the most sagacious of reviews, but it honestly is probably the quickest one to the point. Eric Schlossar’s wonderful book of the same title shows the horror of our fast food country, all while making you angry and invigorated at the same time, and Richard Linklater’s movie…well…is just GROSS. It instead just makes you want to give up, just sit on your couch read US magazine. It a) gives no real solutions, and b) has idiotic dialogue/characters/plots in the way that all Richard Linklater movies do (hear this, WAKING LIFE fans: I don’t want your rebuttals!).
