Come to the Table

After reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle earlier in the year, I've developed quite the appetite for food, gardening and farming related reading material. From seed catalogs to first-person gardening narratives, I find myself bursting with inspiration and admiration. On a recent library trip, I nabbed Slow Food Nation's Come to the Table, and I dug it so much that I'm actually a little sad to return it! I've already renewed it once out of pure denial that it's not mine.

The book profiles numerous small family farms and the amazingly dedicated people who run them. Reading it, I almost felt a little romantic, just utterly swept off my feet by the commitment and passion that these small farmers have for their craft. Seriously, they love growing food, and they cannot see doing it in any other way than one bolstered by respect for their customers and the ecosystems in which they farm. I mean, it freakin' rocks.

I remember reading once that Tori Amos will only play on a Bosendorfer piano because they're handmade down to the finest detail. She said these pianos were full of soul because they had been so intimately handled and labored on by someone filled with passion for the instrument. I remember thinking (and if you know much about Tori Amos you'd likely agree), "Aww, how eccentrically quaint." I was totally reminded of the Bosendorfer effect while reading this book, totally reminded that the food grown by these farmers is colored by their concentrated passion for the farming process. This food has soul. This food makes mass-produced agribusiness food look like a cheap plastic Casio.

Come to the Table has given me a little bit of fever, and the only cure is to ditch the city in a Green Acres sort of way and do a little farming of my own. Yeah, not likely. Not happening any time soon in this crazy economy and with grad school loans looming in my future. But still. The farmers' passion is totally infectious. I know nothing about raising honey bees, but it seems pretty cool to me. Can I have honey bees in a suburban neighborhood?

And speaking of slow food, I have a hopeful little project coming up. And here's a little hint: