september bookshelf.

7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, Jen Hatmaker

Here’s something I love about staying at the Gentino’s.  We arrive at their house and there is a huge stack of library books on the end table, ready and waiting for anyone’s perusal.  The nice thing about this practice, is not only is there lots of reading material available, but chances are people are skimming through the same book at the same time, and great conversations are to be had as a result.

7 was a book I brought and contributed to the stack, and it was one of the books that generated conversation this month.  Linda poked through it, Joe poked through it, David poked through it, and I read it cover to cover.

Joe even subjected us all to the question: “What are your personal biggest areas of excess?” Ouch.

I loved this book. My friend Elizabeth recommended it soon after we came home from South Asia and want to know my first thought?  No way.  I’ve given up enough.  I don’t want to feel guilty about the rest.  Ha.

Thank you to Elizabeth for convincing me to read it, because Jen Hatmaker wrote things I need to hear.  Did it make me feel guilty?  Hmmm.  Not really, maybe convicted is a better word.  Definitely uncomfortable.  But Jen (do you like how I imagine myself on a first-name basis with her?) is very funny, down-to-earth, and best of all, brutally transparent about her own sins of excess.  So as you read her book you feel more like you’re on a journey along with her rather than like she’s preaching at you.

I want you to read it for yourself, so all I’ll say about the book is that it’s about the Hatmaker family’s identification of seven areas of excess in their lives (clothes, food, shopping, waste, possessions, stress, media), and their experiment to take a month-long “fast” in each area.

Jen writes about each fast, blog entry-style, and what she learns through it.  She tells how this experiment changed herself and her family.

Read it.  Even if you’re not a reader, you’ll love Jen, I promise.  It’s helped me think intentionally about the same areas in my life, and part of the inspiration for my “simple life” blog posts.

In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan

Some of you know we’ve been “food experimenting” all month, and by that I mean we’re trying to learn a few new, healthy, earth-kinder habits of shopping and eating.  I was inspired by reading Food Matters by Mark Bittman in August.  Maybe I’ll blog later about our results, but I felt like it was an extremely productive month, and I’m so excited about my family’s “food future.”

So not only have Linda and I been trying out meal ideas and recipes from Food Matters, we’ve been reading and learning about food in today’s American culture (which by the way, fits seamlessly with Jen Hatmaker’s chapter on food in 7 and with the eating/lifestyle changes my nutritionist has been urging me to adopt).

We kicked off the food experiment by watching Food, Inc.  Twice.  That movie is excellent and disturbing and very, very thought-provoking.  I firmly believe every American should watch it.  I’m coming to believe more and more that Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser and Barbara Kingsolver and Wendell Berry are the prophets of our age.  And that we would do well to listen.

Pollan is a key contributor in the movie Food Inc., and has also written, probably most notably, The Omnivore’s Dilemna, and In Defense of Food.  I tackled In Defense of Food this month, which is short and very readable.  This book is so eye-opening, exposing our country’s habit of consuming highly-marketed, processed “food-like substances” as Pollan calls most of what’s in our grocery stores, and the toll it is taking on our health and on our land.

Is all of this about “being green” and shopping in the organic section?  No, not if what you’re thinking is that it’s the latest trend and will send you skipping out to spend more money.  Is it about stopping to think intentionally about what we’re putting in our bodies and our kids’ bodies and the way we’re treating the earth and animals and other people as a result?  Yes.  And that’s worthy of our time.

Are you ready for your assignment, should you choose to accept it?  First, watch Food, Inc.  Next, read In Defense of Food.  And finally read/skim Food Matters, which gives many wonderfully practical ways to make changes to your shopping and eating habits as a result of what you’ve learned.  If you want to be downright fanatical, watch Forks Over Knives too, which we watched for our final pizza/movie night this weekend.  Also loved it (well, some of us loved it and some of us were skeptics–not naming any names).

I’m excited about the new habits our family is already adopting, but believe me, we have a long way to go (hot dogs remain one of my all-time favorite foods).   Still, I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is that one tiny change at a time is much, much better than no change.

I’m also learning that the best way to bring changes to our family’s diet is through inspiration (our new fave snack is the vegan, sugar-free “cinnamon bun smoothie”) than by beating ourselves up for junk food.

The Quarter-Acre Farm, Spring Warren

This book was so much fun.  Spring Warren set out to grow seventy-five percent of what her family ate in a year, and she wrote about the process.  Another author who is hilariously honest and doesn’t put on any airs.  Barbara Kingsolver’s family did something similar in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  Warren’s book is less in-depth, and just a fun read.  There are lots of great recipes along the way.  I can’t say I will ever turn our entire lawn into a garden, but it definitely motivated me to want to try growing a few plants in containers this spring.

Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World, Kelly Coyne and Eric Knutzen

This is a follow-up to The Urban Homestead, a book David and I loved.  It gives step-by-step instructions for many of the husband-and-wife writers/bloggers home-made projects, from composting to facial products to bee-keeping and (literally) everything in-between (composter toilet, anyone?).

The projects in this book are ordered by amount of time required, from least to most time-consuming, so I focused on the section of the book containing shorter projects.

I like that the authors caution you not to become overwhelmed by all they make, but instead to chose one or two things that inspire you.  My take-away is going to be home-made household cleaning products, which all look very simple, save money, and keep chemicals out of the home. (I’d like to add here that another great source for simplifying and for home-made household product recipes that isn’t quite as extreme is Organized Simplicity, by Tsh Oxenreider.  I love her book, and will keep it close at hand as we find and settle into a house.)

The Everyday Happy Herbivore, Lindsay S. Nixon

Are you sensing a pattern here?  Again, this month was “food month” for me, so lots of what I read was to gather ideas for some changes I’m making to my diet.  I do not plan to become a vegan at this point, but I tried several of Lindsay’s plant-based recipes: soups, veggie sides, smoothies and granola bars, and loved them enough to want to try lots more.

To show you how simple her recipes are, I give you the aforementioned Cinnamon Bun Smoothie:

Serves 1

1 frozen banana
1 cup non-dairy milk (we use almond but coconut milk is cheaper)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp pure maple syrup

Combine all ingredients in a blender and whiz until smooth.

Even Judah, the pickiest eater imaginable, said, “This is delicious, Mommy!”

—————–

This is where the rest of my reading month gets dicey.

I think David and Linda would agree that we inundated ourselves with so many library books that we all got a little ADD about reading (and I also blame my friend Lauren entirely for giving me the latest copy of Real Simple magazine).

I flipped through all of the rest of the books pictured above, but I don’t feel like I read enough of any to warrant writing about them yet.  Even a complete bookworm like me was a little overwhelmed with all the options.

But a great time was had by all!