Growing Roots

Stories of folks and families just like ours across America are the focal point of Growing Roots a gardening, nutrition and healthy-living book by Katherine Leiner. I liked this book for three reasons: 1. it wasn't some a uber-green-party browbeating session on lazy, fat consumers, 2. it offered real stories of real folks with real solutions for a variety of sustainable gardening/farming, 3. each contributor offered a parting gift: healthy recipes almost anyone can make. I was so encouraged after reading this piece. From New York to California, more and more folks are re-discovering they can indeed grow and raise their own food, slowly and surely producing more than they consume.

—Meredith Greene, San Francisco Book Review

2011 Living Now Book of the Year

Growing Roots: The New Generation of Sustainable Farmers, Cooks, and Food Activists is about a new revolution in food that involves young people who are living sustainable lives that revolve around healthy, natural food.

The book introduces us to farmers and beekeepers, fishermen and chefs, food activists and cheesemongers, and many, many more. We meet these fascinating young people from all across the nation through first-person profiles, along with brilliant photographs and delicious, simple recipes. They talk about raising grass-fed beef, lamb, and pork; growing vegetables and grains; keeping bees and making cheese; and their restaurants and their markets. Included are filmmakers, writers, and artists who change the way we look at what we eat and where our food comes from. In their profiles we learn how these young people got to where they are today, their backgrounds, their education, and their passionate relationship to food.

The author’s through-line gives us a glimpse of her own journey with food, through her own childhood, raising children, and becoming an empty-nester. Growing Roots is about relationships and how food figures in those relationships. It is for everyone who is interested in learning about this new iteration of the food movement and the folks involved, whether you’d like to figure out how to do it for yourself, or just love reading about it. The photos are beautiful, the narrative lively, and the recipes simple and delicious. A must-read for all ages and a wonderful addition to the food-lover’s bookshelf.

About the Author

Katherine Leiner

Katherine Leiner has been writing since she was a child. She has published many award-winning books for children and young adults and, more recently, her first novel for adults, Digging Out, published by Penguin. She is working on another novel due out in 2012.

Visit KatherineLeiner.com.

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