The Ripest Moments by Norbert Krapf

Bufkinite@evpl — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:00:00 GMT

The Ripest Moments is a simple pleasure to read. While reading this memoir of growing up in the 40s and 50s in Jasper and rural Dubois County, Indiana, I found myself reminded over and over again of my own childhood in northern Indiana, and the cousins, aunts, and uncles we'd often visit in Ohio and West Virginia.

While this is primarily a book about place, and family, it's also a book about community, and the work ethic that built communities like Jasper - and like Evansville, for that matter - with materials and stock that, in the author's words, were "one generation removed from the farm, two or three generations removed from Germany, and a hundred years beyond the wilderness."

As the title suggests, there's quite a bit remembered about the importance of gardens, orchards, and farms in this book. Family garden plots were central to the survival of pre-suburban, working families. "Summers on the Farm," "The Rye Field," and "The Garden and the Strawberry Patch" are just a few of the more mouth-watering chapters.

If you were born & raised in southern Indiana, you'll find something familiar, and likely something warm, in this book. But even if you're a transplant, this book may speak to you. Quoting the author's preface: "I have always believed that any story set deeply in one time and place, if told well, speaks for other times, places, and people. To put it another way, a sense of time and place travels well. A life lived deeply anywhere resonates beyond the context of its specifics."

This one resonated with me.

The author's website.

The Food We Eat: New Ways of Thinking About Food

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:01:00 GMT

Red Bank Branch has two upcoming events concerning our food and where it comes from.

On Wednesday September 24 at 6:30pm Marvin Kemper and Joe Schalansky of Seton Harvest will be speaking. Seton Harvest is a CSA, or community supported agriculture project.

Next, on Wednesday October 15 at 6:30pm Suzan Ozel of the River City Food Co-op will be speaking. The River City Food Co-op is a local source for whole foods, organic foods and local produce.

If you're interested in learning more about the food we eat, try these titles:

The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America's Underground Food Movements by Sandor Ellix Katz
Simply in Season: A World Community Cookbook by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Food by Gary Paul Nabhan
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver
Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty by Mark Winne
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
Feeding People is Easy by Colin Tudge
Everything I Want To Do is Illegal by Joel Salatin

Search results matching tags 'nonfiction', 'Agriculture', and 'Food'

The Ripest Moments by Norbert Krapf

The Food We Eat: New Ways of Thinking About Food