sea change

Was it really November when I last posted? Goodness. I could probably be charged with blog-neglect. Well, it's a new year with new beginnings, so let's just start fresh, shall we?

For a while now, my dad has been encouraging me to read the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I added it to the already long list of "Books other people have recommended to me," figuring that I would get to it eventually. Eventually finally arrived about a month ago, when I was on a Costco trip with a friend, and I noticed the book in a pile on one of the book tables. We both ended up buying a copy, and I finally cracked open the cover a couple of weeks ago and began reading.

And I was instantly addicted.

By "addicted", I don't mean that I found it to be an enthralling page-turner that I couldn't put down, or that I read it straight through in a matter of hours. Instead, I became addicted to the idea of the book--the philosophy that the book is based on. If you haven't heard about AVM yet, here's a synopsis: Kingsolver and her family (husband and two girls) move from Tuscon, Arizona to a farmhouse in Virginia. For one year, they vow that they will only eat food that they have grown or that has been produced locally, and the book is largely a memoir of their experience.

Now, I have always considered myself more of a city girl than a country girl, and I tend to cringe when people talk about buying land and moving out into the country. The idea of a house and land in the middle of nowhere has never been particularly appealing to me.

Until now.

After reading AVM, I want to live on a farm. I want to grow all of my own vegetables, bake my own bread, make my own cheeses. I want to know the people that are responsible for the food I eat. I want to be friends with a dairy farmer and meet the cows that are producing the milk I use. I basically want to fall off the grid of corporate food culture.

Off course, it is doubtful that Todd and I will be uprooting and moving to a farm anytime soon, but I can now see it as a possibility--even a desirable possibility--for the future. And in the meantime, I am going to plant a garden in the backyard this spring, buy more produce from the farmer's market, and stop relying on Kroger for the food I put into my body.

And I'm also going to start making my own cheese, beginning with mozzarella. I'll let you know how it goes...