Great books, blogs and other media to explore and inspire your local eating adventure.

Books

• Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan.    “If you read only one book this year…..”
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver.  A book, a blog, recipes and stories.  This book inspired me to grow my first tomatoes and make my own cheese!
• Plenty: The 100-Mile Diet, Alisa Smith and J.B. McKinnon.  Another book-and-a-blog, this is an amusing and often heartfelt story of the triumphs and challenges of eating locally in Vancouver, BC.
• Coming Home to Eat, Gary Paul Nabhan.  A dedicated locavore, Gary Nabhan writes, lectures and works tirelessly to promote & save local food networks.  Not only does he talk the talk – this hard-core locavore packs dry-roasted grasshoppers as plane snacks and contemplates the legality of eating road-kill javelina from his home in Arizona.
• Homegrown: Pure & Simple, Michel Nischan.  Nischan is a world-renowed chef who is dedicated to fresh, locally-produced, flavorful and healthful meals.  He lives & cooks in Connecticut so this cookbook is a great resource for Northeast-local cooking.
• Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser.  A book and a movie, this one will make you want to know where your food comes from!
• Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, Kingry & Devine. The essential home manual for canning everything and anything.
• Gourmet Preserves, Madeline Bullwinkel.  My “other” preserve bible – many no- or low-sugar jam recipes.
• Botany, Ballet & Dinner from Scratch, Leda Meredith.  A memoir with recipes from Brooklyn locavore Leda Meredith.
• The Gardener’s A to Z Guide to Growing Organic Food, Tanya Denckla.  The organic gardening bible.
• Edible Wild Plants, Lee Allen Peterson.  The best of the local foraging guides.
• Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and not so wild) Places, Wildman Steve Brill. Local foraging guide with hand-drawn illustrations from the “Wildman” himself.

Blogs

• www.grist.org  An environmental news website, with a blog (Gristmill), that often reports on local and sustainable food news & issues.
• Leda’s Urban Homestead  A dancer, gardener, forager and locavore living in Brooklyn. Handy recipes & resources.
• Katonah Green.  Green news, tips and advice in and around Katonah, NY.
• You Grow Girl.  Gardening site with a focus on space-saving, environmentally sound, frugal and fun growing.
• Local Food Rocks.  Local foodie and Natural Princess Alicia Ghio blogs from in and around Danbury, CT.
• Living in a Local Zone.  Living local in Newington, CT.

Movies

• SuperSize Me, Morgan Spurlock.  Scary.
• An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore et al.
• Fast Food Nation. Creepy.
• Being Caribou. Karsten Heuer. Simply inspiring trek to follow migrating Alaskan caribou.
• Big Night.  Stanley Tucci, Campbell Scott.  A must-see for anyone who loves food or cooking.

 Resources

• Radius Map.  Find your own 100-mile, or 250-mile, or 33.7-mile radius for your own local eating life. (Use “prntscrn” key to capture the image of your map for printing or pasting into your own blog.)