Food Heroes: Sixteen Culinary Artisans Preserving Tradition
by Georgia Pellegrini

Readers are introduced to the lively stories of food artisans such as potato breeder David Langford from Ireland, New York mushroom forager Marion Burroughs, “The Butter Poet” Sue Forrester from Cumbria, England and Ugo Buzzio of New York City, one of the last makers of traditional dry-cured sausages in the United States. Filled with colorful anecdotes, photographs, and recipes, this book offers an insight into the artisanal food movement, and vicarious living for food lovers, and others who wonder what it would be like to drop everything and start an olive farm. These are, in author Pellegrini’s words, “…stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things with food while living and thriving outside a corporate urban environment… people taking extraordinary measures to preserve good taste…and preserve our endangered food traditions.”

Tasty Reads Book Club Meeting

Date and Time: Wednesday, October 1, 5:30 pm
Location: Small Potatoes Bakery, 40575 O Road, Paonia
Potluck

In keeping with the theme of our first book, we will celebrate our own local food artisan Monica Wiitanen, who produces weekly artisan breads (and more) from her wood-fired oven. Monica baked pitas for our gathering. People broght a potluck dish with a Mediterranean flavor–dips, salads, tapas– from Europe, the Middle East or North Africa.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses
by Tom Standage

Throughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst–A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. For author Tom Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture. You may never look at your favorite drink the same way again.

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation
by Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen, and discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. But the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships. Cooking, above all, connects us. The effects of NOT cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable.

We will combine this book Club with a Terra Madre talk presented by Emma Stopher-Griffin, Matt Kottenstette and Mike Gillespie at the Hotchkiss Library, Jan 14, 6pm.

Listen to Emma, Matt and Mike’s stories about their experiences at Slow Food’s Terra Madre conference in Italy, then stay afterward for a short gathering of Book Club. And for those who were planning to attend Book Club, please bring a dessert to share for this event, instead of a potluck dish based on the book.

Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food
Pamela C. Ronald and Raoul W. Adamchak

Written as part memoir, part instruction, and part contemplation, Tomorrow’s Table argues that a judicious blend of two important strands of agriculture–genetic engineering and organic farming–is key to helping feed the world’s growing population in an ecologically balanced manner. Pamela Ronald, a geneticist, and her husband, Raoul Adamchak, an organic farmer, take the reader inside their lives for roughly a year, allowing us to look over their shoulders so that we can see what geneticists and organic farmers actually do. This book is for consumers, farmers, and policy decision makers who want to make food choices and policy that will support ecologically responsible farming practices. It is also for anyone who wants accurate information about organic farming, genetic engineering, and their potential impacts on human health and the environment.

Meeting Location

The Book Club meeting will be held on Feb 11 at 6pm at Maria Hodkins’ house on Wood Ct on Stewart Mesa in Paonia. This will be a potluck – the book has several recipes in it for you to consider!

Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us About Health and Healing
by M.D. Miller Daphne

Family physician Daphne Miller long suspected that farming and medicine were intimately linked. Increasingly disillusioned by mainstream medicine’s mechanistic approach to healing and fascinated by the farming revolution that is changing the way we think about our relationship to the earth, Miller left her medical office and traveled to seven innovative family farms around the country, on a quest to discover the hidden connections between how we care for our bodies and how we grow our food. Farmacology, the remarkable book that emerged from her travels, offers us a compelling new vision for sustainable health and healing—and a wealth of farm-to-body lessons with immense value in our daily lives.

While learning from forward-thinking farmers, Miller explores such compelling questions as:

-What can rejuvenating depleted soil teach us about rejuvenating ourselves?
-What can two laying-hen farms teach us about stress management?
-How do vineyard pest-management strategies reveal a radically new approach to cancer care?

Miller seeks out the perspectives of noted biomedical scientists and artfully weaves in their insights and research, along with stories from her own medical practice. The result is a profound new approach to healing, combined with practical advice for how to treat disease and maintain wellness.

Book Club Location

Potluck at Fresh & Wyld! Bring a dish that heals you!

Gathering: Memoir Of A Seed Saver
by Seed Savers Exchange Co-founder, Diane Ott Whealy

Daughter of Iowa farmers, Missouri homesteader, and mother of five, Diane Ott Whealy never anticipated that one day she would become a leader in a grass-roots movement to preserve our agricultural biodiversity. The love for the land and the respect for heirloom seeds that Diane shared with her husband, Kent Whealy, led to their starting Seed Savers Exchange in 1975.

Seed Savers Exchange, the nation’s premier nonprofit seed-saving organization, began humbly as a simple exchange of seeds among passionate gardeners who sought to preserve the rich gardening heritage their ancestors had brought to this country. Its membership has grown from a small circle of people to more than thirteen thousand, and its influence has been felt in gardens across America.

Ott Whealy’s heartwarming story captures what is best in the American spirit: the ability to dream and, through hard work and perseverance, inspire others to contribute their efforts to a cause. Thus was created one of the nation’s most admired nonprofits in the field of genetic preservation.

Meeting Location

Potluck at the Hotchkiss Library, Apr 8, 6pm