I've been meaning to read this book for quite a while, but time is not my friend. So I got it on tape at the library and listened to it on my commute. It took me about a week and a half to get through it and I have mixed feelings about the memoir.
In the book, Barbara Kingsolver's family moves from Tucson, Ariz., to Virginia, so I was immediately amused after thinking about my own time in Tucson. They do this to move back to her husband's farm and try and spend a year growing most of their food and eating what they can't grow locally.
However, before doing this, the family of four prepared for quite some time by starting crops, canning and learning how to raise poultry with Kingsolver's youngest daughter starting her own flock of egg-laying hens and a few raising for meat. Traumatic, if you ask me. I had chickens as a kid but none of them every made it to the laying stage in life and believe me, I couldn't imagine beheading one for food.
I digress. It's an interesting book, I suppose, but sometimes I tuned it out because the missives about various plants and harvesting turkeys were a little much for me, a suburbanite who buys most of my food at Aldi.
The most interesting perspective of the book by far are the passages written by Camille, Kingsolver's college-aged daughter. She offers interesting perspectives on eating organic, seeing an industrial beef farm and explaining her lifestyle to her peers. I wouldn't mind hearing more from her, because Kingsolver sometimes devolves into a bit of a essay on food.
Either way, it was a learning experience from me about food and gardening. Because of what I learned from the book, I've decided to try and grow some herbs and tomatoes. Who knows if the seeds will ever sprout, but at least I'm trying.
It's worth a listen, but parts of this memoir are a bit slow moving, so be prepared.
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