Weekend Cooking

 Beth Fish Reads sponsors this weekly meme where we foodies can chat about cookbooks, cooking gadgets, recipes, or anything else gustatory. Be sure to stop over there to find other terrific weekend cooking posts.  This week I found what I thought would be an interesting book ABOUT food.  I'm really trying to support local farmers and not only eat more healthily, but more responsibly, so this really caught my eye:

Just Food:
Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly
  by James E. McWilliams.

Once I got past the first 20 or 30 pages though, I only skimmed it. It has lots of numbers, some interesting concepts, but it's very dry reading. Like day old bread, it could have used a good soak in olive oil and some tomatoes on top. I think I would have been able to embrace more of his arguments, e.g., eat less meat, use fewer chemicals, farmed fish is OK, etc., had they been presented in a less academic fashion. Pardon the pun--there is certainly food for thought here--but the author has not learned that part of the joy of food is presentation. If you are into food science with a vengeance, there is much here for you. If you're simply a 'foodie' like me, there are many more interesting ways to get your facts. If nothing else, read the first and last chapters, and you'll get a good condensed feel for his arguments.