Comments on: Garden of Earthly Delights/Sin

By: mokin

mokin — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:27:54 +0000

Sheesh, I should know better than to recommend a book I haven’t read yet, but at least now I know it’s lame. I’m glad that I can delete it from my hold list and make room for more worthy books.

By: Yours Truly

Yours Truly — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 13:57:56 +0000

these are great recommends and anti-recommends, guys!

Elizabeth, I totally have Wild Fermentation on my list but I didn’t put it together that it was THAT GUY!!!!!!!!!! Extra excited now! Not gonna eat rotten meat though! Actually that was another guy, not this guy.

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 13:48:14 +0000

Wild Fermentation! (Remember that NYer story about the author? and how they go meet someone who has decomposing meat in a jar? to eat?! that’s not what he does. You can start with sauerkraut.) And I second Putting Food By.

By: Jessica H.

Jessica H. — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 01:30:54 +0000

Oh man, Radical Homemaking is a SNOOZE. Interviews with like 10-12 people in various stages of DIY or back to the land culture that is super repititititititititive and very much like “i live for free on my parents farm with my 3 children whom I home school and we made 8000$ last year total, selling firewood my husband chopped” and people trading goat meat for check-ups for the children.

There is a book I have that is the canning and food storage bible called “putting food by” and it covers EVERYTHING and is not like a sexy food culture book, it is for people who want to dry their own meat and save beans.

You can also start by seeing if there is a community plot available, getting some easy heirlooms and getting a book on seed saving. I have like 100 baby food jars for seed saving I can send you. I want to can too, but I think this year we are just going to start with makin’ jellies. Garlic and Strawberry, but not mixed.

It is totally a process, and it’s hard not to obsessed and try to go all in at once. I am just working on how to make better compost in a non-plastic container and rotate my planting in the garden this year, and grow what we want to eat in the proper quantity. Like 60 lbs less tomatoes and more beans so we can harvest more than 4-6 green beans at a time.

By: sarah

sarah — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 12:31:28 +0000

James and I found that a good book for fermentation and using food (and scraps) to the utmost was Sander Katz’s ‘Wild Fermentation.’ http://www.wildfermentation.com/books_wildfermentation.php
Easy to follow and a very diverse recipe list for many climates. We’ve been in love with it since we bought it a few years ago.

By: eileen

eileen — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 06:03:03 +0000

Your blog erased my comment! AUGH

Essentially
1. Radical Homemakers is NOT AT ALL a credible source, due to huge bias, and also is not a how-to guide, but a faux sociological study. IT’S BAD. My review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/136129041
2. I have a list of roughly 1 million books you should read, and I am not going to type them all out again now. Tomorrow. (Or check my amazon list I suppose.)

By: mokin

mokin — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 21:51:15 +0000

I have this book on my library hold list, so I haven’t read it yet, but I read an interview with the author that was REALLY amazing:
Radical Homemakers : Reclaiming domesticity from a consumer culture by Shannon Hayes.

It sounds like it covers a lot of the same ground as the book you mentioned, though.

By: Vicki

Vicki — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 21:50:13 +0000

Forgotten Skills of Cooking by Darina Allen, badass Irishwoman who runs an old-timey culinary school that follows the seasons etc., and who (Allen) also knows how to make a duster out of a goose wing, and shares that information in the above book. Also contains my favorite kale recipe (hint: it involves nutmeg).