Me, I am my kids' teacher

I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal Vegetable Miracle, a year of food life.

Love it although it scares me! 

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding, and so it goes with the food God gave us. I'm "beginning" to understand it. And it's about time.

This book is a narrative non-fiction ... no black mamba snakes from the Congo like in her beloved Poisonwood Bible.

The most amazing thing about the book is not so much what Barbara (I feel I can use her first name) and her husband (Steven L. Hopps) write ... but it's their daughter's contributions also. Their 19-year-old (at the time) daughter.

Camille Kingsolver contributed most of the recipes. She just didn't type them in for her mom to get her name in the author credits. They are her recipes that SHE cooks and has cooked for years. And she not only knows how to can, but she loves it more than shopping at the mall! You go Camille.

Beautiful stuff. The scariest and saddest part as it would apply to our life is that their family swore off CAFO (feedlot beef) over a decade ago ... and their youngest daughter has never had a restaurant burger before. Yes, dear ones, that means she knows not of the Happy Meal. 

Dang. My oldest son is about their daughter's age. And I shudder to think of the happy meals, big kids meals and now value meals that he, and the rest of us, have consumed. We are doomed. Doomed.

Reminds me that even though I am trying ... I still get tricked. I got tricked just this week at Walgreens buying school supplies for a nickle with my coupons (mechanical pencils, anyone?). I also had a coupon that worked for trail mix or dried fruit. After having a wonderfully friendly employee help me find the proper package, I saw that the coupon worked for dried blueberries. Dried blueberries on sale. Lucky me. Yay. I imagined them on salads, tossed with our fresh peaches and thrown in smoothies.

I had a little taste when we got home. Kind of funky. THEN, and only then, did I look at the package. Ingredients: blueberries and the evil high fructose corn syrup. It might not have even been in that order.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  WHY? WHY? WHY? Why do we need soak our beautiful naturally sweet and perfect blueberries in CHEMICAL CORN? 

Foiled again.

Always. Read. The. Package. Closely.

Or dry your own blueberries like the Kingsolver's would do. 

In other food news, our awesome college friend Kevin has a website chronicling his journey back to health. If you look at his pictures and see the June post ... you'll see the Kevin we knew when we were college brats touring Europe together (along with Full of Joy and her parents when she was but a young lassie) ... back in the 1980s! Check out his green smoothie recipe. Really. It is GOOD.  Really. I just made one ... spinach, fresh peaches, banana, ice (and no chemical blueberries).