Selected submissions are posted below.

I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this past winter while resting after the birth of my second baby. I expected to feel awed, perhaps a little overwhelmed, or even intimidated by heroics. I did not expect to be inspired. I did not expect I would change my life. And I never expected that if I did it, I would enjoy it so much. I loved the point made about eating well not being the exclusive right of the wealthy elite. Contrary to my expectations, our family's super low income didn't impede our ability to join a CSA or start a small garden, and our two young children have made the adventure in local eating more exciting, if anything. Our family loves food, and we steer clear of restrictive diets that make us feel deprived. Here is my 2-year-old, Elliott, shucking corn, delighted by what he finds inside every time.

—Rebecca L Withrow

I am a fifth-grade teacher in Massachusetts, and an avid gardener. I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle last year and shared much of its ideas with my students. I encouraged them to learn about growing their own food, and to explore heirloom breeds of vegetables that are no longer grown in our mass-produced culture. We talked about eating locally and how far our food travels before it makes it to our local markets. Some of my students were so inspired that they planted a vegetable garden of their own and donated much of the produce to a local shelter in Quincy, Massachusetts, Father Bill's Place. This year I'm teaching them about vermicomposting—I can't wait!

—Jennifer Whelan

We really wanted fresh tomatoes! Lots of them. I wanted to make soup and sauce, and just slice and eat them. Our yard lacked a sunny spot for a garden, so my husband decided to grow tomatoes on our flat roof! The picture shows one days pick!

—Barbara Dalderis, California

In Quebec, the mentality about eating local and assuring some measure of food security is not yet very popular. Perhaps, because all the food we have is always in a constant supply, but that could change in a near future. We are so dependent in all the food coming from all other countries. Nevertheless, some 60 years ago my mother’s family (16 children, two parents and two grandparents) survived with their own vegetables and animals.

My husband and I think quite like you. We moved out in the country last year where we have more land for a decent size garden and a barn and garage to store machinery. Pretty much all our neighbors are/were farmers. We just bought a small 700-pound Black Angus beef from one of our neighbors who let his beef graze in pastures most of the time. We have biological [organic] chicken not too far away and plan to raise our own next year. A lot of local fruits are available. We have to cook or freeze all of them. All of these possibilities allow to us to buy more local.

The photos are of when we got all those nice red and white potatoes out of the ground!

—Sylvie Veillette

Just want to mention that the first step in eating locally is to breastfeed.  It amazes and saddens me that so many women choose artificial formula over their own milk.

The health consequences to mother and baby of choosing not to breastfeed are significant, and it’s just mind-boggling to think of the environmental consequences.  From the dairy farm, the factory, the trucks to the landfill, formula negatively impacts the environment.

If you want to make a real difference in your family’s health AND the environment, do the right thing; breastfeed your baby at least one year!

—Judy Harden, Director

Permian Basin WIC Program
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
Midland, Texas

Semilla Besada is a 16-hectare subsistence farm in the mountains of southern Spain and has been our home and work for more than nine years. We moved here because we felt compelled to live in a more sustainable way. We have about 150 mixed fruit and nut trees, six vegetable growing areas, a vineyard, four beehives, a flock of the rare breed of Andalucian Blue chickens (which keep us in eggs and meat), Production Toulouse geese (which keep our paths weeded), a warren of 37 mixed breed rabbits (which support us in meat), a flock of nine sheep. They provide us with wool and lamb during the year and in the future we will be able to make our own cheese. Predominantly, though, they are helping us reverse desertification through Holistic Management. We already make our own goat cheese using milk from our neighbor and are probably about 80% self-sufficient in food. We are fortunate in that the sun supplies our electricity and hot water, as well as enabling us to store our food without cost, by allowing us to dry fruit and vegetables. We also use the sun to cook for a good part of the year. The only things that we buy that are not local are grains ... but we are working on it!

—Aspen, David and Sam Edge, Spain

As a primary care physician, I am daily aware of the poor eating habits, obesity, and subsequent disease states of this nation's populace that were pointed out in the book. Unless something changes, our peculiar form of malnutrition will break the health care bank and overwhelm any system that manages to get put into place. Thank you for mentioning Alice Waters' Edible Schoolyards program; what a wonderful idea for teaching kids about nutrition and hopefully changing the (usually) awful school breakfast and lunch programs. This will be my community activism when I retire (after 26 years, the thought of no call sounds good). Besides, I now have two grandsons to teach how to "dig in the dirt." The two-year-old wants me to start "growing" chickens, like he saw at the county fair.

—Dr. Susan Betts-Barbus

Our family of four (including two preschoolers) is in the process of turning much of our 800m2 back yard into a productive food garden in Nelson, sunshine capital of New Zealand. It is a tremendously satisfying journey to be on, and life-long learning for all of us. Just yesterday my 23-month-old son found a piece of carrot on the floor left over from the previous night's dinner (thrown from the highchair I imagine) and said "Mum, put it in the compost!" 

—The Bryant family, New Zealand

Hello from Dawson Creek, BC, Canada! Our book group decided to make our first meeting of the year (September ’08) a brunch using recipes from your book. Three of us have gardens, and we have a wonderful local farmers market, so finding what we needed was easy. For our menu we made Eggs in a Nest (no rice), Summer Potato Salad, Basil Blackberry Crumble, and we drank local apple juice. It was a wonderful, simple meal (pictured above).

L-R:  Stephanie, Janet, Sharon, Jennifer, Pat (Missing: Kris and Rosemary)

We embarked on our homesteading adventure a few months before our marriage. We bought a 40-acre farm with a 150-year-old house. Over the course of our seven years of marriage, we’ve participated in the cycle of life to its fullest. The children and animals keep us busy. We’ve raised three Angus cows and their annual offspring. Likewise, we’ve participated in the birth of countless goats and sheep. I love it when the ewes drop lambs in the middle of the night. Or the goats kid their twins within minutes of each other. When everything is running smoothly on the farm, I feel affirmed in our choice to live a deliberate lifestyle. There have been countless joys, but also countless heart aches. In all fairness, the end result is the concrete understanding that living takes hard work and we have to share with the rest of creation. Regardless, I’m convinced there is no better environment in which to raise a family and it’s a priority to enact our beliefs.

—Patience, Baker, Holden, Chase, and Kipenzi Perry, Flat Springs, North Carolina

In July of this year, I went with four other friends from my church to cook for a week, two meals a day for about 80 people. This was the Ozark Mission Project where kids go into a community and work for families building wheel chair ramps, painting, or roofing homes for people who are not able to do this for themselves. During that week, we decided to use this experience to plan a One Hundred Mile Meal which we had learned about from Heifer Project International. We started researching early on what we would be able to buy from local farmers and then planned our meal. We drew a map of Arkansas and then noted the towns (all within 100 miles of our camping site) so the campers could see where it all came from. We purchased purple hull peas, sweet corn, tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon and organic ground beef from which we made 25 pounds of meat loaf! After working all day, the campers came in and shucked corn and shelled peas. We pulled all the bowls we could find from the church kitchen where we were working and campers were sitting around everywhere shelling peas and talking about their day. After their required duties that night and before they went to bed, they came back to shell some more! They shelled two bushels of peas in one evening! The next night they really dug into the meal. The majority of those kids had never seen where peas or corn came from.  Parents from our church have called us to tell us what their kids had to say about the hundred mile meal. They all want the recipe for the meat loaf and I tell them, “It’s not the recipe, it is the meat—buy organic!”  When the farmers found out what we were doing, they often gave us more than we asked for or reduced their price!  We were blessed in so many ways.

Joy Rockenbach, Lynn Rockenbach, Carol Roddy, Linda Miller, Michael Poole
Ozark Mission Project Cooks, Little Rock, Arkansas

Two years ago I set a goal of being totally self-sufficient for produce, and local for the rest of our family's food, year-round. I gave myself five years to do it. We're well on our way! I get beef, pork, eggs, flour, and cheese locally (though now through AVM I've been inspired to make my own cheese), and grow all of my own fruits and vegetables in the spring, summer, and fall. This year I'm trying to close the gap with my first winter garden. Just today I put up our years' supply of enchilada sauce and made grape jelly. 
Sometimes with working full-time and raising two small children I feel guilty spending so much time gardening.  When reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the guilt vanished because my children do know potatoes have plant parts and what asparagus looks like in August! My now 5-year-old daughter last summer said to her visiting grandparents, "You get your vegetables from a store?"

—Laila, Dave, Tove, and Evangeline Goldring, North Bonneville, Columbia River Gorge, WA

We have turned our whole lot (4500 sq. ft.) into organic food production.  We transformed the yard into garden beds, mini orchards and mushroom and berry-growing patches, not to mention a building a chicken coop and a 1500-gallon rain catchment and irrigation system. We started the process in July of 2007 and by February of 2008, we had all our perennial trees, vines, bushes and spores planted as well as our early annual crops like sugar snap peas, spring greens and potatoes. And, chickens too! Because our timing and soil health was on the mark, we have been eating and preserving an abundant and constant array of fruits and vegetables since last April. As a result - my cooking is now inspired and Craig is profoundly appreciative of it; I find enormous satisfaction in every day chores; our chest freezer and cupboards are full and our garden is still churning out fall and winter crops. Craig and I feel more secure in these troubling economic times because we have invested our energy into soil: It's our gold.

—Joyce Greenberg and Craig Parsley at Parsley Farm in Seattle WA

My favorite part of buying local is my own excitement in watching the produce change, week by week. As spring turned to summer, apples disappeared and just re-appeared last week (to my elated happiness!), asparagus came and went, blueberries are about to end. I go each week, wondering what will be there, excited that I may find something that I've never tried before, like the yellow raspberries or korean melon. I always try to get my friends to come with me, or start going themselves, not only because it's cheaper and socially responsible, but it's fun!

—Keely Monroe, San Francisco

Our local city regulations allow for urban chickens, with many groups and gardeners encouraging the practice and an annual tour of urban coops (see http://www.growing-gardens.org/portland-gardening-resources/chickens.php).  While my predatory dog won't allow me to have chickens, I'm always happy when my neighbor kids are selling eggs at their sidewalk stand. (Why bother with lemonade when you can sell eggs!)

—Lesa Dixon-Gray
Portland, Oregon

I have been wanting to keep backyard chickens for some time now. Unfortunately, the way our town ordinance is written makes it nearly impossible for anyone living within the town limits to gain approval. I felt this should be changed, and so I jumped in head first!

Last week, I contacted the only family in our town to have 'legal' backyard chickens, and gained their friendship and support. I then, with their help, created a petition to the town council to get the ordinance changed. I wrote an article to drum-up interest in the endeavor, and published it in the local online news site. That article caught the interest of the local NBC station, and we had a news segment Friday night! It has been a very busy week! Once I feel there are enough signatures and community support, I will go and make the formal proposal to the town council. I have created a blog (www.wfchickens.blogspot.com) chronicling this saga. I hope more towns will become forward thinking and realize that local food is good for everyone involved!

I have included a photo of my daughter with some eggs we collected from a local free-range farm.

Emily Cole

My little family (husband, 4-year-old daughter and I) have an "allotment" which we rent from the local Council. This is our second year of growing fruit and vegetables with our little patch of land slowly being transformed into a haven of paradise and nutritional delights since its first digging (see photo). Your book has created a gravitational force for all the thoughts that were swirling around in my head about grow-your-own. It has also made me think about food miles and the greater scheme of global food production.

I hold out hope that my daughter India will acquire a more varied palate as yours have obviously done. I am proud that she can distinguish a potato plant (top and bottom!) and now knows where strawberries come from! It has been a brilliant learning curve for her and on a much smaller scale we have sat around our table relishing a home-cooked meal made from produce we worked hard over, half the time not really knowing what we were doing.

Lucy, Andy and India Robinson
Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom

My wife, Sarah, my son, Noah, and I live in Montpelier, Vermont, where winters can be fierce and long. This year we didn’t see the ground from the third week of November until mid-April. In the fall we had a bunch of carrots still in the ground and no good way to keep them fresh for the winter.  I read in Stocking Up by the Rhodale Press that you can simply mulch your carrots and let the snow pile up on top of them.  When you need carrots in the winter simply shovel off the snow, peal off the mulch (maple leaves in our case) and dig them out of the ground. I was amazed to find beautiful, black, unfrozen soil the whole winter long. When the snow finally did melt we harvested about 15 more pounds of carrots that we are still trying to eat before they go bad in our refrigerator. I don’t think we’ll make it to the next carrot harvest on our home grown carrots but we’ll probably get darn close. 

Shawn Keeley, Waterbury Center, VT

A Spring bounty of Morel mushrooms and roadside asparagus, compliments of chapters 2 and 5 of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle  (with a best-supporting nod to Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus).

Even here in the 'burbs, fresh, free, local produce is often only a bike or hike away...

Mike Haliday
Campbellsville, Ky

Last August 2007, I began a 250-mile diet for a year. Well, for life really, although I may relax the rules slightly when the year is up. I'm doing this in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, NY. Space has been a challenge, and at one point when I was stocking up the home-canned goods I was sleeping with about 50 jars of food under my bed because there wasn't anyplace else to put them. I've been chronicling my local eating adventures on my blog at http://ledameredith.net/wordpress.

Eating local was a new concept for me and my family until three years ago when we moved from Southern California to Central Oklahoma. We then saw small farms that were consistently struggling in an area that is known for its agricultural background.  Here, Oklahoma City was trying to prove itself as a “world-class city” by importing everything from theater groups to food. I couldn’t help wondering why we were driving past pastures full of cows living less than three blocks from my suburban home to eat meat imported from Texas CAFO’s. We did some checking around and found that Oklahoma State University (OSU) had a farmer’s market every weekend with everything we could possible need. We got to know the farmers who had their cattle processed at a butcher less than 15 miles from my house (and theirs). The next stand had dairy, milked earlier that morning and great tasting homemade cheeses. Farther on, we found most all the vegetables we could ever want.  We found a “U-Pick” farm 12 miles from us that had the most delicious blackberries as big as my thumb. This small orchard also had peaches, nectarines, strawberries and apples all at the appropriate times of the year.  Driving home, we passed a small sign stuck in a small garden advertising okra, corn and green beans. (They had a much larger sign for the zucchini). Had this sign always been there? How many times had we driven past it without seeing it?  We had to stop and fill up. Guess what: Blackberry Zucchini bread is REALLY good!

Two months ago we moved back to Southern California due to a job transfer and were worried about how we were going to continue our local diet. Until I realized, duh! We were moving to Southern California! Most everything that I avoided in the “super” grocery store chain had been grown in California. A quick check on the internet and I found that there is a Farmer’s Market in San Diego county everyday of the week except Monday. I now find that I feel “put out” when I have to drive to Carlsbad on Wednesday (16 miles from my house) because we didn’t get enough tomatoes from the Vista market on Saturday. I have been able to find local farms that have chickens (and eggs), turkeys, lamb, goat (and milk) and pigs all within 40 miles. We have plans of starting a small home garden early next year and my three boys can’t wait to get to digging.

Jenni Kirby, Vista, CA

Just a few years ago our family decided to start raising a few hundred chickens.  We have been amazed with our community’s new desire to buy local.  We feel embraced by this new "slow food" movement and are blessed to be a part of it. Thank you for reinforcing how proud we should be when we have hay in our hair and dirt under our nails!

-Katie, Mark, and James Bowen 
Meadowdale Farm, Putney, Vermont

We are a group of seven households in Stroud, England, who have been cultivating four 'allotments' every Friday morning for the last 8 years. We are passionate about local food and the joys of gardening together. The picture is taken at our winter solstice celebration. That morning we harvested savoy cabbages and parsnips for our Christmas dinners as well as leeks, curly kale and mizuna.

-Sheila Macbeth

Recently, it was my turn to host my book club, so we read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  For the event, I cooked a cauliflower and carrot casserole in a tureen, which refused to set; a broccoli, egg, and pinto bean dip; and a disastrous beetroot chocolate (which was fair trade) cake which just didn ’t worked. Most of the vegetables, though, were from less than an hour away. January was not the month to choose this book from the hosting point of view – we live in Scotland, so not too much grows around.
However, I have bought a selection of heritage seeds, including Drunken Women lettuce. But the timing of the book has actually been good, because a UK television show has highlighted the plight of intensive chicken farming in a really big way – certainly one topic for discussion tonight! 

-Katy Galbraith

We have spent the last year or two trying to eat more locally. We live on a bit over an acre on the edge of a city. We raise chickens for eggs and some for meat. We are going to add a chicken tractor this summer for more meat birds and one for turkeys. We keep sheep for wool but eat the neighbor's sheep and this summer bought a fourth of a cow from a local farmer. Thanks to your book we have joined a CSA for the summer to supplement what we grow in our garden. It is so nice to know that my children know where food comes from.

- Elisabeth Sonersen
Nampa, ID

People mistakenly believe that urban dwellers have a harder time going local. But I live in Brooklyn, and I like to say that I live in the country in the city. We have a small backyard (20 feet wide by maybe 35 feet deep) and we grow tomatoes, peas, string beans, zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, cherry peppers, basil, yellow and red peppers, raspberries, apples, and strawberries in the spring/summer. We also have a year-round herb garden under a cold frame. And, of course, we compost. Brooklyn is already blessed with wonderful soil, but adding our compost to it is like frosting the cake.

Our garden isn't big enough to feed us, however, so we weekly walk our shopping cart to the Grand Army Plaza Farmers Market in Prospect Park, where we buy all our vegetables and dairy products from local farmers. Even in January, there are still farmers at the market -- it is amazing to have the luxury of fresh local greens in the middle of winter! I have not bought a vegetable from California or Chile at the supermarket in who knows how long.

-Therese Mageau
Brooklyn, NY

Aloha,

Being born and raised in a food- and organic produce-loving country (Germany), I just recently relocated to the magic island of Kauai, Hawaii. 

My passion and curiosity for cooking, eating, and entertaining has been nurtured from my upbringing in Germany where cooking among friends, sharing meals, and sitting down for a dinner is the “usual way of life.”  My mother was a chef and I also cook professionally. After 15 years in the US, I realized that a simple thing like sharing dinners around a kitchen table is something many Americans, even in my generation, never had the pleasure of experiencing. They grew up eating microwavable food while standing over the kitchen sink!

My husband and I will be relocating to Europe in 7 years when we retire to experience living in a slow food nation again.  

-Birgit Mitchell

This winter myself and 7-8 other friends are starting a cookbook club. However, it isn't all about recipes. We are learning, sharing, and celebrating food and the importance the table plays in our lives.  One of our meetings will be about understanding how low-income families live off $3.00/person/day and developing menus around it.  Another is about sending foods that heal to people who are in need of hospitality. It is about culture and traditions and the role it plays in our upbringing.  I can't wait!

Another one of our meetings is about eating locally, seasonally, and fresh; of course your book provides that inspiration for me....we will delve into the CSAs available to us and how to read "food labels" with a different eye. 

Also, our family went to Costa Rica over the holidays and we couldn't believe how local and fresh the bananas, pineapple, onions, potatoes, carrots, squash and coffee were!  Delicious and they traveled less than an hour to our plates. 

-Kay King

Greetings from The May Farm! 

On only 8 acres in Benzie County, Michigan, our goats, sheep, chickens and steer provide meat, milk, yogurt, eggs, fiber, maple syrup, lotion, manure and firewood for multiple families. A neighboring farm trades herbs, veggies, tinctures and salves.  For fruit, we freeze enough peaches, berries and cherries from other farms to last all winter. 

Instead of candy bars for fundraisers, local school kids now sell local honey and maple syrup.  

-Sharron May

We are an American family living in London and left a large garden and well-loved composter in Washington DC. We had vegetables and some fruit in DC, but when we first moved to London, we were out of touch without our garden. I immediately decided that we should sign up for a weekly farm box delivery and do our best to "cook to the seasons." We now eat 80% of our food from a company in Wimbledon that supports local farmers. The delivery just came in today, and now the beets are roasting and the sweet potato muffins are baking. Glorious.

The boys are delighted to see what comes each week and I have not heard a peep or complaint. They love scrubbing vegetable dirt off everything right now.

-Anne Dawson

Just finished your book and loved it. It felt good to know that there are others worried about the food supply.  We are in the suburbs of Washington, DC, in Maryland, and have a 1/4 acre lot (that includes the footprint of the house) where the garden keeps getting bigger.

Just had to share my pumpkin story: We had a "volunteer"  pumpkin vine come up from the previous year's compost spread on the garden.  Since I had not grown pumpkins, it was from one of the jack-o'-lanterns carved at Halloween. We left it where it was, and it took over last year's garden. We got 19 large pumpkins off that vine. We gave a few away as gifts,  but carved three and processed ten of them.  The pumpkin is still in the freezer in 2-cup amounts, which is just the right amount for a pie or a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, or pumpkin bread. It's a good thing my kids like all those things. 

--Linda B.
Bowie, Maryland

We live in Norway, where the transition from a local to a global food chain has been even more remarkable than in the US. For instance, oranges only became available all year round here in the late 1950s.  Today, the sweet peas in our supermarkets are from Guatemala or Kenya, not only in the winter, but right in the middle of our own growing season.  A quarter of our local community are living on welfare, and considered unfit for work.

To say that we were ready for your book would be an understatement.  However, Norwegians live at the latitude of Greenland.  They depend on imported food staples.This year, we're celebrating the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's blockade of our coasts, and the year 1807 is still remembered as one of extreme hunger.  Today's population is six times bigger and works only a fraction of the hours. Without imported grain, they would starve.

We have enormous quantities of fish, and practically no wheat.  Clearly, a system of international food trade is needed.  A compromise.  The challenge is to curb the senseless gluttony, and find ways of using the landscape for food production that are compatible with acceptable living standards.

Living on a small farm in the countryside like we do, is like sleeping in a small cocoon.  We grow potatoes, raise chickens for eggs and meat, and buy our beef, mutton and pork from our neighbour.  But the trucks are still thundering day and night through the tunnel under our hill, laden with luxuries. And before our neighbour's animals can reach our freezer, they are still required by law to travel to the slaughterhouse and packing plant, i.e. over 200 miles.  We must do something!!

--Karyn Seroussi and Jørgen Klaveness

My two daughters and I are growers and producers of Santa Barbara County's only Certified Organic Olive Oil. We also own the only "wine country" food tasting room where we educate our customers on the healthful attributes of olive oil as well as the other tasty but healthy products we produce (over 24 items—appetizer spreads, fruit vinegars, finishing glazes, snacks & confections)... Eating healthfully doesn’t have to taste like cardboard!

I am a single mother of two adopted daughters from Nepal and working very hard to make this business a successful sustainable one for my girls and me. I have included a press shot of Anita, 11, Sunita, 12 (in the chef hat) and myself holding our gold-medal winning, certified organic, extra virgin olive oil.

--Theo Stephan

For two years, I have been working with a group of fabulous, dedicated (and hungry) souls to start a natural foods co-op in our community, with the emphasis on fresh, organic and local food.  What a ride it has been.  In the photo we are standing on a frozen lake at a community “golf” event to raise awareness and solicit memberships. (Obviously the carrots are not local, but they are organic).  With a location soon to be named, we hope to be open within the next year with bins full of local produce from our neighboring farm communities.  We can all make a difference, and this is one way we’re doing that.

--Michele Krolczyk,  Orono, Minnesota

After listening to the chapter on making cheese, I jumped out of bed and went straight to my computer.  I was beside myself waiting for my first cheese making kit from the New England Cheesemaking Supply.  Here is a photo of my first batch of ricotta draining.  It is delicious.  I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to stumble upon the world of cheese- making without your book. 

--Kyle Putnam

Here's a picture of my husband Michael, showing off his 2 1/2 lb Brandywine tomato! He looks like the size of it scared him, doesn't he? Even with the record-breaking heat and drought we're experiencing here, this plant keeps on keepin' on! We're your (local) neighbors, living in Harmony, TN.
                    
--Sam Jones

After years of wild living as field biologists, my husband and I are slowly spreading roots on 25 hardscrabble acres in Arkansas. Out here, our kids are rewarded for getting dirty (pulling white icicle radishes from the garden!). We're nurturing a fledgling orchard, and we've got a slew of rare breed hens, including a busty White Jersey Giant named Big Delores.

We dubbed our farm The Flying Mulberry.

Why? Ask the birds.

--Jennifer Bové, Calico Rock, AR

Our local food adventure began eight years ago when we moved from Dublin to County Leitrim, located in the North West of Ireland. We bought an old farmhouse on three acres of the most inhospitable marginal land imaginable. Everything about the land was wrong for growing, with a shallow layer of topsoil, two inches at most. The soil is known locally as daub you could make bricks out of it.

The plan was to become self-sufficient in at least vegetables. Fortunately, my background is in horticulture, so I knew what we needed to do: raise beds, create drainage, and add oodles of manure and compost.

After all these years, the field is producing carrots (hoorah!); it literally is a miracle. We have approximately one acre in production and I run a box scheme locally in the village of Dromahaire.

The local food culture is in its infancy in this country, but in this county it's quite significant. The Organic Centre which is located in Rossinver is on our doorstep, a paradise created through incredible people to provide a center of education in all areas of organic sustainable living. As luck would have it, I moved to this county. I now work there parttime on our Community Food project which is basically a supervised community garden. We have six of them spread between Sligo Leitrim, and Donegal. This, I believe, is the way forward: education through hands-on experience, sharing the harvest, and learning to cook it.

As luck would also have it, because we work in education and community gardening, we got to go to the Terra Madre in Italy last October. It was an experience that will live with me forever and a day, and one that has motivated me so much to continue with all the back-breaking hard work, because it is so worth it.

-- Ingrid foley

I have been getting our milk and cream from a farm 15 minutes down the road, and making our cheeses, yogurt, and butter. After visiting the farmers market, I made a fresh mozzarella and tomato salad. After happily eating it, my husband declared, "Wow, that was great. It was in the cow the same day it's in me!" Now that's what we call FRESH. Thank you so much, your book has inspired us. Our food tastes so much better!

--Hassan Demartino

I'm a city girl, one who used to jump and scream when finding a spider inside the house. We moved to Italy for three years and that changed my worldview. I noticed that in the markets there, the produce would vary with the seasons. This is laughable in a way because I've obviously been spoiled by abundance and had lost touch with the most instinctive animal drive: how to eat. What made the biggest impression on me, besides being thrilled with offering my children such fresh, wonderful food, was the asparagus.
 
Now we live in the U.S. again. The kids and I started a compost pile this summer. We live in a suburban area, so this is no small feat. So far, none of the neighbors have noticed and I hope it stays that way. Our goal is to produce enough compost to start a small bed of vegetables for next spring. For now, we are relying on produce delivered from a local farm co-op. For the first time since Italy, I can taste the earth in my food.
 
--Eileen Lunardi

The wild asparagus I've been finding by the side of the road here in Central Kentucky represents a grand intersection of three great loves of mine:

Reading, because I had never heard of wild asparagus until I ran across Barbara's story in AVM about her father finding wild asparagus while making house calls and marking them to find in the Spring. I had never heard of wild asparagus before!

Cycling, because it is a perfect way to hunt for wild asparagus, riding slowly along roadsides and fencerows where it grows.  My eye was caught by this curious blue-green, feathery plant with bright red berries, and I knew immediately what I had found. I can't wait for my next ride!

And finally: Nutrition, because I'm a believer in traditional nutrition, and it just doesn't get any more local, fresh and organic than wild asparagus by the roadside! 

--Mike Haliday, Campbellsville, KY   

Soon after reading Animal Vegetable Miracle, I attended Parents' Weekend at my son's school: College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. I was delighted to see they are offering Slow Food meals for students. Here a a few of the highlights of the meals:

*Choice of menu or create your own served family-style on original Holy Cross Crested dinnerware.
*Meals served in a private area of the dining hall.
*Locally grown foods and personalized service.

Hooray for them for nurturing bodies, minds and spirits.

--Susan Rome
Denver Colorado

I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and I wanted to share some of our local eating experiences and resources here in Belgium.  A Michigan native, I am very fortunate that, in spite of our cold winters, we have summers long and hot enough to produce a wonderful array of produce. Belgium has its own challenges: it's not nearly as cold in the winter as Michigan is, but it still freezes, and it's not nearly as warm and sunny in the summer. Additionally, when I first arrived here, it seemed to me that Belgians did not drink fresh milk as all of the milk was UHT and sold on shelves, a real surprise after living in Holland where all things dairy are fresh, inexpensive and plentiful. However,  I have now discovered that the province of Antwerpen, where I live, is rich in dairy farms where the cows eat clover and amazingly many of the farms have milk vending machines, where you supply your own bottle and put it under the spigot, put a bit of change in (about 80 eurocents a liter - which is 25-50 cents less than the grocery store) and get fresh milk. We also grade our eggs here: 3 means access to fresh air and open yard at all times; 2 is access to fresh air and some yard; and 1 is cage raised. I can tell you that I know the chickens roam free because, in my neighborhood, I have to be careful where I drive!

--Jennifer Kepler, Veerle, Belgium

I live in Riverside California, where oranges grow easily. However, I’ve been buying orange juice from the grocery store, without really thinking about it. After reading your book, I finally looked at the label, and my juice was coming from Florida and BRAZIL! Now—I literally drive by orange groves between here and the store, so I decided I had to do something. There is a hacienda-style nursery about a mile and a half away that sells plants and some produce. I can buy a 10-pound bag of oranges for $6.00, which yields nearly two of the store-bought containers. And boy does it taste better. So, it’s better for me and it’s better for the Hispanic family down the road. It’s so much more than just orange juice. It makes me a part of this place.