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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A helpful beginner's guide to finding local food, November 28, 2008
This review is from: Eat Where You Live: How to Find and Enjoy Fantastic Local and Sustainable Food No Matter Where You Live (Paperback)
"Eat Where You Live" is a light-hearted how-to book on local and sustainable food. Its target audience is people with little to no experience with local food but who are interested in eating more sustainably. With chapters on shopping, gardening, foraging, food preservation, slow food, sharing, and seasonal eating, the diminutive book is chock full of hints in bulleted lists along with a glossary, lots of web links and other resources. The book has suggestions for how to get started without going to such extremes that one is tempted to give up. Overall, Eat Where You Live has lots of helpful ideas, and I think it would be a good resource for the target audience.
At the same time, however, I think the book would have benefited from additional discussion of two topics. First, it is unfortunate that canning was dismissed as too time consuming and involved for "the average person," perhaps discouraging some readers. Admittedly I took a class through the cooperative extension program at a local university before I felt comfortable canning smoked salmon in a pressure cooker, but I've been making (and canning) jam most of my life and canning rhubarb saves room in my freezer for other things. If the author is not comfortable with canning herself, she could have at least mention a few resources for folks who might want to try or include an "Ask the Expert" page on canning.
Second, the author's goal of helping people to "find and enjoy local and sustainable food no matter where you live" would have benefited from additional discussion on produce beyond the standard American fare. In some parts of the country, it is possible to grow just about anything. But in other places, the heat or the cold or the rain or the drought limit what can be grown. So it is helpful to think about strategies for adapting to what can be grown locally, including trying new vegetables. A few recipes for less common vegetables or suggestions about finding such recipes might have been more helpful than a recipe for hot chocolate.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The description does not do this book justice., September 18, 2008
This review is from: Eat Where You Live: How to Find and Enjoy Fantastic Local and Sustainable Food No Matter Where You Live (Paperback)
This is one of the most practical guides to sustainable, delicious, healthy eating I have found.
(Disclaimer: I know Lou Bendrick, but we rarely agree on anything and I am hyper-critical, so she will be shocked if she sees this review)
This book contains really USEFUL, and some times humorous, information and good recipe ideas, too. Ok, I will try the beet sandwich really soon.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoy what you eat, October 11, 2008
This review is from: Eat Where You Live: How to Find and Enjoy Fantastic Local and Sustainable Food No Matter Where You Live (Paperback)
Lou Bendrick understands the locavore-persona and doles it out in down to earth sections in Eat Where You Live. This book not only made me hungry (for some good, healthy food) but also got my noggin's gears turning. Eat Where You Live, is more than helpful with its lighthearted and funny text which explains that there is more to the frozen food isle at the supermarket and actually there is more to food than supermarkets in general!
Most Americans have lost the food-land connection. Bendrick provides the insight of her experience in gathering what food she can as close to home as possible, depending on the seasons and the landscape.
I read the book over a few days but will likely use it as a reference for certain sections again and again. There are tons of web sites listed throughout for further exploration as well as recipes and little interviews with inspirational sustainable gardeners, farmers and eaters. I especially savored the section on foraging and taking meals at a slower pace. We could all slow down a little. Slow down, and start by reading about how your diet can become more sustainable and more enjoyable.
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