The Locavore's Handbook: The Busy Person's Guide to Eating Local on a Budget [Paperback]

Leda Meredith (Author), Sandor Ellix Katz (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2010

These days, nearly everyone wants to eat green and local, but tight schedules and even tighter budgets can make it seem like an unattainable goal. The Locavore's Handbook: A Busy Person's Guide to Eating Local on a Budget is here to help! With practical, down-to-earth advice, Leda Meredith guides readers through the process of incorporating locally grown foods into their meals. In a concise book designed for mainstream readers, she discusses budgeting; sourcing, growing, and preserving food; shopping efficiently; and supporting local merchants and planet Earth. Everyone, including time-pressed, cash-strapped urbanites with mini-refrigerators and zero storage space, will find inspiration and a host of helpful, surprising ideas. Brooklyn-based Meredith's tips and tricks are particularly helpful for readers in cooler climes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Expanding on 2008's Botany, Ballet and Dinner from Scratch, which chronicled a year of eating nothing that wasn't produced within 250 miles of her Brooklyn home, locavore and urban gardener Meredith presents a practical guide best suited to conscientious foodies in the New York City area. Though much will be familiar to locavores and devotees of Michael Pollan--including the benefits of seasonal eating and the problems of conventional farming methods--Meredith sums up the issues well. Tips on sourcing (particularly from Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) groups), community and urban gardening, and composting provide concrete, succinct steps toward greener food consumption. Meredith also provides thorough tips for getting the most out of farmer's market purchases, including standard meats and produce as well as less familiar foods like fiddlehead ferns and currants; she also provides instructions and steps for preserving a summer bounty and the dos and don'ts of foraging. Though she closes with a list of web references for any zip code, Meredith's more specific tips-and there are many-are largely confined to New York.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Leda Meredith is New York City’s leading locavore. She is the author of Botany, Ballet and Dinner from Scratch, a memoir with recipes about her year of eating only foods grown within a 250-mile radius of her home in Brooklyn, New York. She has been featured on The Martha Stewart Show and in the New York Times and New York Post.  An instructor at the New York Botanical Garden and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, specializing in edible and medicinal plants, she details her locavore lifestyle on her blog, Leda’s Urban Homestead, at ledameredith.net/wordpress.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Lyons Press; First edition (April 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762755482
• ISBN-13: 978-0762755486
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #300,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something for everyone - a great read!, May 6, 2010

By 

The Local Cook (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Locavore's Handbook: The Busy Person's Guide to Eating Local on a Budget (Paperback)

If you think that you can't eat local because you don't live on a homestead, can't afford it, or don't have time to cook, this book is for you! The Locavore's Handbook: The Busy Person's Guide to Eating Local on a Budget is an easy, encouraging read that's great for anyone who is just starting down their eating local journey.

For once, a book that actually delivers what it promises! If you ever read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingslover and thought "that's nice, but that would never work for me," this book is for you. What I especially love is that while she covers a lot of ground, she never makes you feel bad for not "doing enough." If you've read enough blogs and local eating websites you know what I'm talking about. In fact she ends each chapter with "If you do just one thing . . . " a section that gives one tip you can implement no matter where you are.

Not just for newbies, as I learned a few things and I feel like I've been at this for awhile. For example she gives a great overview of things you can forage (fiddleheads, for example) and some great recipes (dandelion coffee, nasty bits). And gives handy charts such as what to plant when and how to organize your refrigerator.

It's well organized and will be on my reference shelf for quite some time.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic resource., May 27, 2010

By 

DH "D." (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Locavore's Handbook: The Busy Person's Guide to Eating Local on a Budget (Paperback)

Leda Meredith has learned by experience how to eat locally, and how to do it as efficiently and easily as possible. Her argument about the value of eating foods in season was particularly interesting to me -- I've gotten used to eating whatever I want whenever I want it, but there is something really compelling about connecting to what the earth wants to offer in a more intimate way. A great book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Book of the Times, April 6, 2010

By 

P. van Noort (NYC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Locavore's Handbook: The Busy Person's Guide to Eating Local on a Budget (Paperback)

As the awareness around local food is expanding this book arrives at the right time. And not only that, for those of us wanting to eat healthy, well and with consciousness on a reasonable budget this is the book to read! The author writes with great humor and from her personal urban experiences which show her understanding of and compassion for the challenges of trying to change our ways in these already way too busy and demanding times. A real gem if you want to move to the next level of awareness and action in living a sustainable lifestyle...