Sheryl Kirby

Food, Life and the World at Large

Archive for January 25th, 2008

The Miracle Worker

Some random thoughts about Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

  • I think it should be a rule that books about food should be written by fiction writers as opposed to scientists or even journalists. Kingsolver is just better at describing everything, and she has the skill to make it all interesting, as opposed to dry and clinical. In terms of inspiring people to eat locally, or grow a garden, it needs to be about more than food miles or vitamins. Kingsolver makes it a spiritual quest, and I think there needs to be more emphasis on that.
  • However… lady sure can get preachy, which, after you’ve read a dozen or more books all espousing the eat local philosophy, sure can get annoying.
  • OMG – y’all discussed eating locally while on vacation in Montreal, but drove back to the US via Niagara Falls with nary a peep about Niagara wine? For shame!!!
  • Inspirations – to bake bread at least a couple of times a week (although not with a bread machine as Kingsolver’s husband does), learn to make my own cheese, and stock my freezer and pantry with the summer’s bounty to last throughout the winter. Join a CSA if I can figure out how to get to one to do my required work time given that I don’t drive.

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If the Shoe Fits

I’m having feet issues. A combination of genetics and decades of bad shoe choices have escalated into a diagnosis of flat feet and a need for orthotics.

Now, the word orthotics, in theory, should no longer strike fear in the hearts of people fated to wear the things. It used to be that foot problems meant orthopedic shoes, which were huge and lumpen and deformed, and were really not attractive. These days, those with foot problems fork over big cash for orthotic inserts that are not dissimilar to a plain old insole, except that they’re custom-made to fit your feet, have a whole lot more support along the arch and cost four or five hundred bucks.

Orthotic inserts were meant to solve the problem of ugly shoes, as they fit into most decently-made shoes, and no one would ever know you had uneven legs or were knock-kneed. Friends with orthotics have confirmed that they wear theirs in everything from Doc Martens to Fluevogs, just so long as the shoe has a removable footbed, decent heel support and a high level of shock absorption.

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