Real Food

Here's the future of (real) food: Today in the Washington Post's Food section, an excellent article about the local food movement. Some relevant links:
*The Haul That Helps Small Farms by Emma Brown, Washington Post.
*To view the video that accompanies this story, click here.
*The Local Flavor, a farm buyers club (direct-to-consumer)
*James C. Hanson, UMD economist working on sustainable agriculture and small farms
*Polyface Farms (and be sure to read their story)
*Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omivore's Dilemma.
More anon.

Madam Mayo's Top 10 Books Read in 2008

1. The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman
by Nancy Marie Brown
With grace and elegance, a story brought back over a thousand years.

2. The Landed Gentry
by Sophy Burnham
Sophy Burnham's extraordinary, courageous, vividly and stylishly written romp through a heavily camouflaged part of America, first published in 1978, is back in print--- through the Author's Guild's phenomenal backinprint.com program. Highly recommended. But not for the squeamish. Read what the author has to say about it here.

3. In Defense of Food
by Michael Pollan
A bodaciously good book. It will change the way you eat.

4. Tras las huellas de un desconocido: Nuevos datos y aspectos de Maximiliano de Habsburgo
by Konrad Ratz
One of the most important new works about Maximilian in years. I'll be posting more about this book soon.

5. Getting Things Done
by David Allen
If not for this book, by now I would have been a gelatinous blob of neurosis, double-fried. I LOVE THIS BOOK! Certainly, without it I could never have coped with (gasp) facebook and (arrrgh) twitter. This is Mental Management 101 for the 21st Century. Read this and understand why you must-must-must get a Brother labeler and a stack of file folders, like, yesterday.

6. Born Standing Up
by Steve Martin
Jerry Seinfeld calls Steve Martin's new memoir, "Absolutely magnificent. One of the best books about comedy and being a comedian ever written." Yes, it is absolutely magnificent. But no, it is so much more: It is one of the best books about being an artist--- of any kind--- ever written.

7. Across the Territories: Travels from Orkney to Rangiroa
by Kenneth White
White is a Scottish poet and founder of the Institute for Geopoetics. Beautiful and humorous. (Thanks to L. Peat O'Neil for the suggestion.)

8. Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee
by Hattie Ellis
Travel on a spoon from Surrey to Sicily, and Paris parks to New York City rooftops-- and gain an all new appreciation of this nectar from heaven, and the reason why bees can tell us more about ourselves than any other creature. (Except, well, pugs. Had to get that in there.)

9. Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster
by Dana Thomas
This deeply researched and elegantly written expose of the luxury business has nothing--- and everything--- to do with today's bloated and WalMartized publishing industry, a subject I admit I care a lot more about than fashion. That said, I found this book riveting. My favorite quote, by shoe designer, Louboutin:

"I see these men who build luxury brands to make money, and I am working in the same industry but I feel I have nothing in common with that... Luxury is the possibility to stay close to your customers, and do things that you know they will love. It's about subtlety and details. It's about service.... Luxury is not consumerism. It is educating the eyes to see that special quality."

P.S. Watch the author read an excerpt about terrorism funding (via YouTube).

10. On Royalty
by Jeremy Paxman
An unusually perceptive meditation on the whys and wherefores of a peculiar but very human institution.

---> Madam Mayo's Top 10 Books Read in 2007
---> Madam Mayo's Top 10 Books Read in 2006

Bee Monday

Reading the latest by Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food, and re-reading my amiga L. Peat O'Neil's excellent pieces on organic farming in Mexico (one a delightful profile of the queen of Mexican cuisine, Diana Kennedy), last weekend I was inspired to visit the very informative storefront apriary of Vitamex, in Ixtapan de Sal, Estado de Mexico. (And: I'm reading Rudolph Steiner's Bees, which is, like, totally cosmic.) Alas, it seems the Vitareal webpage is down (link is www.vitareal.com.mx). Apropos of the bees, my amigo T. sends this link to Virgil's Fourth Georgic, on Beekeeping. And it turns out, there's an international symposium on bees in Puerto Vallarta next fall. More buzz anon.

Eat Food. Not a Lot. Mostly Plants.

Michael Pollan's new In Defense of Food is a bodaciously good book. Check out his website, with excerpts, articles, and more, here.

Related post: King Corn.

Guest-Blogger David Taylor's Top 5 Books Read in 2007

Guest blogging today for Madam Mayo is writer and documentary film-maker David Taylor, author of the award-winning book Ginseng, the Divine Root and instructor at The Writer's Center.

Following Madame Mayo’s rich selection the other week, I offer my own Top 5 Books Read in 2007:

#1. Tree of Smoke
Denis Johnson had me hooked since Fiskadoro. In his hands, a novel about the CIA in Vietnam gains mystery, epic scale and fully-dimensional characters on both sides.

#2. In Case We’re Separated
In Alice Mattison’s collection of linked short stories, a family’s characters span decades and reappear in surprising situations.

#3. The Great Fire
Shirley Hazzard’s fine novel set in Japan just after World War II, like Tree of Smoke, gives an intimate portrayal against a broad canvas. Other favorites in fiction this year were Away by Amy Bloom, and You Won’t Remember This by Kate Blackwell (full disclosure: a good friend). But with just two slots left, I’ll make a case for nonfiction:

#4. The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Michael Pollan combines a strong narrative voice with a fascinating analysis of the food industry and how we eat.

#5. Maximum City
by Suketu Mehta is a mind-blowing picture of Mumbai (that’s right, Bombay) through vivid portraits of a few of its residents. Truly a glimpse into a city of tomorrow.

---> Check out Madam Mayo's other guest-blog posts here.