Real Food

Michael Blowhard reviews and discusses Nina Planck of "Real Food" fame, with links to books and sites like hers and Rod Dreher's. I had the book on my wish list but at a pretty low priority, as I assumed it was worthy but maybe a bit boring. That's not Michael's take:

" "Real Food" I enjoyed thoroughly as a book. I enjoyed sinking into it; I was held by it; I enjoyed hanging around for the full length of it. It has personality and depth, as well as a movingly handmade quality. What it sells as a book-experience is analogous to the rewards of the approach to food and eating that Planck advocates. That's a pretty appetizing and rewarding experience.

"As a writer, Planck is anything but a fussy aesthete -- M.F.K. Fisher she ain't. (Nothing wrong with an aesthete's rhapsodies, of course, even if that kind of thing isn't often to my liking ...) Instead, she's down-to-earth, approachable, and substantial. The daughter of hippie-gone-back-to-the-land farmers, Planck was raised around animals, plants, and the food biz. As an adult, she has set up and run a number of farmers' markets. She isn't about to be prissy or pompous about any of these topics; she's too robust, direct, and clear-eyed to disguise what she's seen and what she knows.

"She writes stirring evocations of life around growing things, good food, the pleasures of eating (and of being healthy and feeling good). The open, friendly stories, reminiscences, and confidences are plentiful and moving, and they segue smoothly into more-general information. A sweet passage describing milking the family cow morphs pleasingly into a short history of cows and milk as food."

Sounds like a Querencia book to me.