I suspect Mimi and I may the the rabid enthusiasts for ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE, but honestly I'm ready to move to Spencer's farm in Aiken county and start planting. Kingsolver transported me back to my daddy's organic plot on our farm in Starr. I've been homesick since I picked up the book. I'm going to try the recipe for a vegetable bread pudding next, and I've been out to our little tomato plants harvesting the last of this summer's bounty. They would have rotted on the vine had the book not sent me scurrying for the hope of just one more jucy, lucious, tonguefest--and there they were just hanging in the weeds--dozens of them. I bit the top of one standing in the yard, greedily sucked out the juice, and sent a silent thanks to Barbara.
Who out there has put on a pot of water to boil, headed out the the corn field--knife in hand, shucked while walking back to the house, plopted the the corn into boiling water, and impatiently waited the 10 minutes until you could slather on the butter and salt? Now that's an experience that can't be duplicated in any agribusiness ad no matter how much talent they pay for. On the agribusiness issue--several years ago after eating a mammoth serving of corn pudding, my lips and nose began to get itchy and swell. Oh NOOOOOO! I couldn't be allergic to corn, my all-time-favorite vegetable. Nope, not at all--I'm allergic to synthetic nitrogen which is widely used on those megafarms and found in literally all products containing corn unless it's labeled organic. Who knows what evil is hidden in our food?
I'm almost finished with the book and will bookmark the web site before I head back out to Rosewood Market to buy more local veges. BTW, if you've never eaten a wild turkey, it really does taste something like lobster, but you have to be willing to try dark meat since there's almost no white meat on a "real" turkey.
