Slice of Organic Life (Hardcover)

by Alice Waters (Author), Sheherazade Goldsmith (Editor) "Baby leaf salads are a gourmet treat when eaten on their own or mixed in with a plain green salad..." (more)
Key Phrases: worm composter, salad rocket, natural paints (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This smorgasbord of organic recipes, tips and suggestions has something for everyone, but like a Jack-of-all-trades, it's a master of none. With an emphasis on food, from gardening and buying to preserving and preparing, it also covers household hints on such subjects as conservation (turn down the thermostat), safe cleaning products (baking soda) and the three R's of green living: reduce, reuse and recycle, with recipes for such products as baby food, sauerkraut and exfoliating skin scrub. Some of these slices of organic living are appealing and accessible, like instructions for growing potted herbs, making compost and drying tomatoes. Others, like the information on renewable energy and keeping honey bees, are too sketchy to be of real use. The six pages devoted to raising pigs (with one entire page on selecting your breeds) borders on the absurd for most people. The selections are randomly ordered, with churning butter next to Make Organic Drinks. Profusely illustrated, the book may make an inspiring gift for those wishing to make their lives greener, but it's apt to frustrate and confuse novices trying out organic, and those seeking in-depth information will have to look elsewhere. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description
Featuring over 90 self-contained projects, from growing your own food organically, cooking home-grown produce, keeping selected livestock, and leading a more sustainable lifestyle, this down-to-earth, yet practical guide is the perfect start for someone looking to go "green." The team of experts offer options for city dwellers with little space, for those living in the suburbs with a bit of land, and for those who have acres of land and no ideas on how to use them. The book includes a foreword by alice Waters. AUTHOR BIO: Concerned by the poor quality of food on offer, Sheherazade Goldsmith started up an organic delicatessen that soon began to specialize in home-cooked food for babies and young children.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: DK Publishing (June 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756628733
• ISBN-13: 978-0756628734
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #205,970 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #48 in	Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Organic Cooking
  #49 in	Books > Home & Garden > How-to & Home Improvements > Green Housecleaning

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great book for your coffee table, July 26, 2007

By	Lilac Lily "Book Lover" (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

"A slice of organic life" is yet another book of the back to basics movement. The author gives you a broad overview on what you can do to become part of the organic life. Along with that the book has tons of beautiful pictures which makes it very nice to look at and will probably have you wanting to start your own farm today. Nevertheless the author assures you that you don't have to live in the country to put at least some of her ideas into practice.
Some of the topics covered include:

Energy Saving

Natural Cosmetics

Support local businesses

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Bake Bread

Beekeeping

Grow your own herbs, fruit & vegetables

Raise pigs, chicken, ducks and cows

Although it's a bigger book with 352 pages, the author only touches briefly on every topic. For the beginner this would make a great introduction into what's possible in the organic world. If you are, however, looking for more in depth and How-To information you should look for a different book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A nice place to start, September 8, 2007

By	Anyechka (Rensselaer, NY United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This book does exactly what it sets out to do, bring the reader a slice of organic life. While I did wish that some of the sections had been a bit more detailed, the point of the book isn't to provide an exhaustive thoroughly-detailed resource on all facets of an organic natural green lifestyle. And there's a nice appendix in the back providing websites, phone numbers, and addresses of businesses and organisations that can give the reader more information on the areas s/he's most interested in, such as growing herbs, raising livestock, or starting a hobby farm. Divided into the sections "No Need for a Yard," "Roof Terrace, Patio, or Tiny Yard," and "Yard, Community Garden, or Field," it presents numerous projects and lifestyle changes the reader can implement based on the amount of personal space s/he's got. For example, someone with only an apartment can be more selective about one's food products, make fruit cordials, and grow salad leaves, someone with a small yard can make compost, grow tomatoes in a pot, or make one's own barbeque, and someone with a large yard or field can become a beekeeper, keep geese, or plant a vine. There's also a bit of overlap with some of the suggestions; for example, anyone can use cloth diapers, buy natural bath products, use reclaimed furniture, make jam, or make berry popsicles. It gives the reader a lot of ideas, some of them things which most people are already aware of, such as raising a garden, and some which one might not have known about before, such as having a truly green Xmas tree. It also doesn't really preach to the reader and tell him or her to do all of these things; besides the fact that everyone should transition to a greener lifestyle at one's own pace instead of jumping in whole hog all at once, some of them won't be practicable for everyone, for whatever reasons. For example, some of these things seem really hard-core or evenly potentially dangerous for a beginner, like making one's own paint, foraging for mushrooms, and creating one's own cleaning and bath products. The sections on raising animals for meat and other byproducts also rather surprised me; it seems as though most people into a natural organic lifestyle would be promoting getting food from the resources we already have instead of using up even more resources to raise farm animals and contributing to an animal overpopulation problem just to get a regular supply of pork or so that a cow or goat can have a continual supply of milk (dairy animals need to be pretty much pregnant every year in order to keep producing milk). Overall, though, there are a lot of good interesting suggestions on how to make a greener lifestyle a reality instead of just a dream.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good intro to organic living, but not a comprehensive guide, August 5, 2007

By	BakingandBooks.com "BakingandBooks.com" (CT) - See all my reviews

"A Slice of Organic Life" introduces readers to the various ways they can incorporate organic living into their routines, regardless of where they live or how much time they have on their hands. Chapter one, titled "No Need for a Yard," has a variety of easy tips that can be adopted by someone living in a small apartment, from shopping ethically and growing strawberries in a hanging basket, to growing herbs indoors and then drying those herbs for storage. Each topic is 2 to 4 pages long and gives the reader a brief, yet helpful, introduction to the subject. Recipes are included where appropriate, for instance, in the section about how to make & freeze baby foods, where the authors share recipes for baby meals like herb mash, carrot soup, and fruit smoothies. The second chapter of this book is meant, as the title indicates, for people who live in an apartment or house with a "Roof terrace, Patio, or Tiny Yard." Here how-to topics include growing an apple tree in a pot, gardening without pesticides and collecting rainwater to water your plants. The third chapter, titled "Yard, Community Garden, or Field," takes organic living to its utmost manifestation and includes sections such as how to preserve fruit, create a wildlife pond, make apple juice, milk a cow and make freshly churned butter. Every page includes eye-catching color photographs and much food for thought. Indeed, if I had a large yard the section on keeping chickens would have left me seriously considering building a coop.

In general the chapters in this book are well-conceived and enjoyable, but on a couple occasions the authors took their enthusiasm for organic living a bit too far. For instance, on page 102 they counsel readers to forage for mushrooms in the wild, which is dangerous advice if only because several lethal mushrooms resemble their edible cousins. Though the authors share photos of four poisonous mushrooms and tell newbie foragers to tag along with experienced foragers in the beginning, only an expert should attempt to gather mushrooms for consumption. Every year approximately 9,000 people in the US accidentally poison themselves with mushrooms, and though one could easily talk around this point by noting how a majority of the people poisoned are curious children with an appetite for fungi, in my book it counts for something that even food expert Alton Brown has said he wouldn't presume to pick mushrooms in the wild. Nevertheless, on the whole, this book is an excellent introduction to organic living, giving readers the opportunity to thumb through a user-friendly manual on how to make their lives more environmentally friendly without abandoning metropolitan life or giving up creature comforts. "A Slice of Organic Life" will make you rethink how you approach even the most mundane aspects of your life.