Books

This past summer I read a lot more books than usual. All of them were so good, I thought I would write a little something about each one.

I read these two books at the beginning of the summer. MWH (my wonderful husband) and I had gone to see the movie Food, Inc. and had started to think more and more about the kinds of food we were eating and where it was coming from. Food, Inc. will totally cause a change in the way you think about food. It was a great movie that I recommend for everyone. These two books by Michael Pollan were also excellent. I especially like The Omnivore's Dilemma. MWH and I had been eating at home a lot more before reading these books, but we were still eating a lot of processed foods. Now, we stick with more local fresh foods and have learned so much about how different foods are made (yogurt, cheese, butter, buttermilk, bread, etc.). We have also started "putting up" some food for the winter months.

After reading the books above I moved on to: Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. I wanted to read the book before going to see the move...good idea. After seeing the movie MWH bought Julia Child's MTAOFC. I haven't used a recipe from it yet (we are still reading Martha Stewart's cookbook as well), but I read a few passages about lamb and Julia really lays it out there for you...just like she is having a conversation with you and telling you her cooking secrets.

Next was:

This book was soooo good. I really like Barbara Kingsolver's writing. Before this I had read her book The Poisonwood Bible, which was also very good. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a story about Kingsolver and her family and how they made a pact to live for one year off of food that they either grew themselves or could get within a 100 mile radius of where they lived. She talks about heirloom vegetables, eating with the seasons, raising laying chickens and a flock of heritage turkeys, and there are excerpts and recipes written by her daughter for different seasons of the year. Just a great and fast read. Now I want to have my own little spot of land where I could do the same thing.

After all those food related books, I had to switch to some fiction.

This was and still is one of my all time favorite books. The emotion and story of the characters is so real and just seems to speak to me. The first time I read it I just cried and cried. I did shed some tears again this time. Now I need to convince MWH to go see the movie with me.

This is what I am currently reading:

A gift from MWH.

This is the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series of novels by Charlaine Harris. The HBO series True Blood, which is also very very good, is based on these novels. Only just started, but so far a good read.