April flies past me in books

It has been too long and of course it is nearly the end of April. Where did the month go and I know I tried new recipes! Lately I have been reading a bunch of food books as I would call them. They are pieces that cooks have written or have been written about them. Here are my two pence on the few that I have recently read:

Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (and family)
I have really enjoyed reading her books in the past for their humor and her story telling ability in the Southwest so was excited to see another book by her on the shelves. It took me a bit to pick up the book but once I did finally picked it up I couldn't put it down. It is about her and her family moving from New Mexico to Virginia to live on their farm for good and how they make it work for them. They include stories of daily life, recipes, information on how things are politically and other random notes of living on a farm. One of my favorite things was learning about her youngest daughter and how she took to raising the chickens to create an egg business out of them! What a great way to learn the value of money and responsibility. Something I took away from the book was about learning and wanting to know more about eating within the seasons which is a good experience. I will aim to add it more into our eating this year too and go with what is local and in season plus you get the best of what is out there if you try for it!

Alice Waters & Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee
This one was given to me for my birthday and I had not heard about Alice Waters before and can't believe after reading it now that I ever could not have! She has been a major influence in food for years and I must have been in my own bubble but I have broken out! The book focuses on how she came into the restaurant business and how it has taken on whole new life in the way they sourced food from local places. This has been the motto since the beginning and has helped to steer others in the same way. I really enjoyed this book as I am a huge fresh market person so it really spoke to me about how to keep finding local products or to meet the producers. Alice Waters if you do a quick search on the NY Times there is a bunch of information if you want to learn more. I do love the fact that the US has started to bring this one by starting at the top with the White House and their new garden...of course we have to see how long it will last! I did recently add Alice's cookbook The Art of Simple food and made several things out of it already.

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell
This one was more of a light read and a good one for the long plane flight that is my roundtrip to Seattle. A woman in NYC needs a break from her dull normal day and picks up Julie Child's French Cookbook and decides to cook all the recipes in it from start to finish, over 500. The book is funny and light at heart but still reminds you that cooking can help to relax and escape the normal dull work day. I think there is something to be said for that since that is what I do on a daily basis. They are also using this book as a basis for a movie so that should be interesting to see how it turns out!

My Life in France by Julia Child
As a result of reading Julie & Julia I had to go and read this one. So far I am about a 100 pages in as it is my tube reading material and enjoying it. I remember watching the shows on PBS growing up with my dad and being in awe of her and how she always just seemed to whip everything into shape without batting an eye. In searching for the links to show you the readers more about the books I also discovered that Julie Child has dvd's out too!

So happy reading and I will work on a food post this week before we head to Rome with David this coming weekend.