Book review: Eat Pray Love

I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s memior, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, for my book club last month. Following an extremely low point in her life, Gilbert embarks on a journey of self-discovery to global locations which she perceives to have mastered specific areas of well-being: physical (Italy), spiritual (India), emotional (Indonesia).

Throughout the book, I was reminded that this option–of abandoning all responsibility for an extended period of time–to travel the world to “find” one’s self is a luxury very few people can afford. Financial and non-financial implications for the average reader make this book somewhat of a farce from the onset. Clearly the international travel added glamour to the book, though a person could probably just as easily ”find” themself within the cultural variance of traveling within the continental United States. Gilbert’s writing was rather tidy and convenient–noting that this trip was for the specific purpose of producing a book–leading the authenticity to be suspect.

On a side note, I wondered if this is not the “new” American Dream. Sure, the house with 2.5 kids, a dog and a white picket fence remains a standard for achieving the American Dream. Yet it seems that once those things are accomplished, there is a drive to abandon it all…to find freedom from the responsibility all that Dream imposes.

I also wonder if this need to “find” one’s self, to identify some kind of meaning and purpose in our lives is an American phenom which is somehow related to our Dream pursuit. Do people of other cultures wallow in their need to be affirmed that they are doing something worthwhile with their lives? Have we as a culture repressed our ability for pleasure for the pursuit of achieving some great meaning of life? Is this not an upper-middle class (and upper class) luxury? A good friend of mine often reminds me of the perceived Italian way to a satisfied life: good food, good wine, good women (or men). Has the American way paved too complex of a road that we miss the simplisity of a good life?

54 years of asparagus

A friend sent me this article of a colleague’s grandparents who have sold asparagus out of their garage for 54 years.

It’s a delightful story. Enjoy.

the locovore debate

As a kid, I remember a big marketing ploy by manufacturers which toted their products as “Made in the U.S.A.”, instilling pride in citizens to shun foreign companies. Ford and Chevrolet teamed up to sway consumers from Honda and Toyota. Did it work? I don’t know. I recall that my dad was sold. I suppose this, in a global way, was a locavore mentailty. We continued, however, to consume grapes from Chile and pears from Argentina, so the U.S.A. loyalty was selective.

The debate continues. Stephen Dubner wrote an article for the New York Times about the growing locovore popularity. The comments following his op-ed are worth reading. Thanks to my dh for passing it my way.

a growing obsession

Someone asked my husband where I developed my obsession with food. Certainly I haven’t always been this way. So, for anyone interested, here’s a bit of my journey to food obsession.

As a kid (like 6 or 7 years old), I loved mountain oysters. Of course no one told me what they were, and I wasn’t smart enough to ask. Around 8 years old, I had the opportunity to participate in the “harvesting” of these oysters, which shocked and repulsed my delicate palate into a new state of skepticism. (In my last post, “You can take the girl off the farm”, I mentioned fighting “the simplistic–and seemingly backward–way I was raised”. Let this example serve as Exhibit A.)

A few years after that, probably around 10 or 11 years old, I seriously considered becoming a vegetarian. In a family where some kind of home-grown pork or beef anchored nearly every meal, I realized, however, that my conservative, farming parents would probably not recover from such an announcement. It seemed like a battle not worth waging.

Years later, along came Morgan Spurlock. His documentary, Super Size Me, of a 30-day McDonald’s diet ignited a new commitment to knowing what I eat. Realizing my nievete to assume that what I am presented as food actually be food–clean, healthy and nutritious, began rushing over me. I picked up Spurlock’s then-girlfriend’s book, The Great American Detox Diet: Feel Better, Look Better, and Lose Weight by Cleaning Up Your Diet, which followed on the heels of the McDonald’s documentary. Jamieson’s foresight on Spurlock’s need to detox his body from the toxins of processed foods following his 30-day experiment shaped this first writing. While I don’t personally embrace her vegan perspective, her research on how and what U.S. Americans consume is unnerving. Jamieson deconstructs much of our nation’s mindless consumption, offering instead the tools to reframe the way we make our food choices.

I read her book at a point when I physically felt unhealthy. My energy level was quite low and I for months I just felt lousy. Jamieson notes early in her book that our food consumption affects these ailments, as well as issues of depression and low libido. Judging by the number of medical commercials shown daily for drugs to combat these physical and psychological issues, the victims are great. While there are many contributing factors to the cause of depression and low libido, shouldn’t what we consume be considered one of them?

I believe life-changing initiatives are best served in small, manageable (and thus sticky) doses. I wanted to implement changes in my diet, and in my family’s diet, which would have some staying power. From Jamieson’s book, I sought the following:

• increase water intake
• reduce dependence on animal protein (meaning less meat, more beans/legumes)
• reduce caffeine consumption
• use more natural sweeteners, like honey, maple syrup or molasses, in place of corn syrup and refined sugar

After nearly two years, these goals remain part of my family’s diet. Sure, we drink soda now and then. We have barbecues and like cake with a thick, sugary frosting. We have candy bars stashed in the cupboard. But a new normalcy has been established and we find that we no longer miss the quantity of processed foods we consumed before.

You can take the girl off the farm,

but you can’t take the farm out of the girl. Or something like that.

I spent the evening with my brother. We were hunting asparagus. After more than an hour, I arrived home with a little more than two pounds of fresh, wild asparagus. If you’re like my sister, who called me in the midst of last week’s hunt, that probably doesn’t compute.

Hey, what are you doing?
I’m hunting asparagus. What’s up?
What? Why are you hunting asparagus?
Because I like to eat it.
But why do you hunt it?
Because it doesn’t come to me. I have to go get it.
But why don’t you just buy it in the store?
Because… well, for a host of reasons. I know we don’t have time for this conversation now. Can we get back to why you called?

Even my husband doesn’t understand. His casual reminder that, “We’re not homeless” is not a deterrent to my–and my brother’s–desire to forage food where it’s grown. It’s not about getting free food. I’d gladly pay. Actually, I am a huge fan of U-Pick farms. The local strawberry/raspberry farm and apple orchard are on my schedule for frequent visit this year. (Last year I made three trips to the strawberry farm. My husband was amazed at the more than 30 pounds of strawberries which entered our house last summer.)

There’s something about the way our society has smothered out the natural heritage of hunting and gathering that doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe it has something to do with growing up on a farm which causes a person to embrace in a more intense way what the earth provides. There’s a satisfaction, too, of self-sufficiency. It’s an independence from the social norms. Maybe I’m just positioning my perspective to shade my need for control. Probably.

For more than half my life, I’ve fought the simplistic–and seemingly backward–way I was raised. I wondered if anyone would see through my first impression to discover that I was a transplant from a place just “this side” of where “rural” intersects with “rural.” Maybe it’s all the reading of Kathleen Norris’ Dakota: A Spiritual Geography and Willa Cather’s My Antonia (Enriched Classics (Pocket)) or Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.) which has given me new appreciation for my upbringing and the qualities of that place and people there who helped to shape me into who I am today.

For me, choosing a slower path in the frenetic frame of life means being more deliberate, savoring the moments, sights, sounds, smells and tastes rather than rushing through them to get on to something “more important”. Somehow I’ve come to appreciate the rural quirkiness that runs in my blood. I come from a long line of relatives who made moonshine and dandilion wine, others who quietly roost chickens in their urban backyard so as to always have farm fresh eggs, and still others who hunted mushrooms and marked time by the song of the locust. It’s in my blood. And I am grateful for it.

say cheese.

Over the last month or so, I’ve been making mozzarella cheese nearly weekly. The system seems to be getting easier. The early batches of cheese didn’t seem to yield much product. More recent attempts have been highly successful. One change I’ve made is to ensure the milk starts at a cooler temperature. I try to buy the milk at least a day before I plan to make the cheese, then store it in the back of the fridge for optimal cooling. I think this has affected the greater yield.

The cheddar I made is about 8 weeks along. While it is considered “ready” to eat after 6 weeks, it’s best after 6 months. So, I’m figuring Thanksgiving will be about the time we break it open. I’ve noticed in the last week or so some mold growing on the wax. This is perfectly normal (and actually necessary in the aging process), though I must admit it creeps me out just a little. We’re so conditioned to avoid mold that I sometimes have a hard time remembering that it is actually a helpful little microbe.

I should get started on another hard cheese. I’m particularly interested in making Parmesean, which would be a good addition to our pasta meals over the winter. I’ll need to get that started some time this month.

I’ve also been looking into cold storage. Ideally cheese would age in a root cellar or cave at about 50-55 degrees. I have neither. I am considering buying a used fridge which I could set to that temperature and store in my garage. I’m particularly keen on this idea as I look toward cold storage options for vegetables and fruits later this fall.