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[paxamicus AT earthlink.net]

>


Have you read any of Barbara Kingsolver's stuff? You might be  
interested, she's local to you. She splits her time between Arizona  
and sw VA.

Not the fiction (although I like it), the non-fiction stuff.  I am  
thinking of <i>"Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"</i> in particular.

Quote from her web site below:

> Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first  
> nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways  
> to an old truth: You are what you eat.
>
> "As the U.S. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun  
> Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the  
> Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows  
> all around. We were about to begin the adventure of realigning our  
> lives with our food chain.
>
> "Naturally, our first stop was to buy junk food and fossil  
> fuel. . . ."
>
> Hang on for the ride: With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara  
> Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away  
> from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow  
> to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it  
> themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search  
> yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly  
> zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better  
> for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Part memoir, part  
> journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a  
> passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family  
> life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.


Gene said:

> I have always been impressed by how many Ozarkers, possessing ample
> land, fail to put in the simplest garden. Those who do often only grow
> tomatoes and sweet corn.
>
> I was happy to see this morning in the Arizona Republic on-line news a
> story about home gardens. A sign of growing knowledge and conditions:
>
> http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0308garden08a1.html