Keep it Local with "Eat Where You Live"

With the terms “locavore” and “foodshed” finding their way into the American vernacular, discovering fresh and local foods is no longer just for botanists, chefs or farmers. Eat Where You Live: How to Find Local and Sustainable Foods No Matter Where You Live (Skipstone, $18.95, Paperback, 978-1-59485-074-5) is the answer for the everyman who wants the health and community benefits of farm raised, free-range chicken, rather than a frozen chicken patty from the grocery store.

Lou Bendrick’s how-to guide is filled with easy-to-follow tips, simple recipes, sidebars, informative interviews with farmers and, of course, tons of resources for finding, cooking, storing, growing and enjoying fresh, healthy and delicious food.

This book approaches local eating as a fun and healthy choice that serves a beneficial purpose for both the local farming community, as well as the consumer. Kitchen tables everywhere can rejoice in fruits and vegetables from a CSA, co-op or farm store supported through the local economy, instead of chemical-laden, mass-produced products shipped across continents via trucks and boats. Eat Where You Live is local food for “mere mortals”—busy parents and working professionals who want health-conscious choices but don’t have culinary credentials, large food gardens, or green thumbs.

Bendrick includes tips on storing fresh food and how to create pleasurable local meals that include the kids participation, as well as the low-down on how to eat sustainably without guilt or added stress. Eco-savvy moms will enjoy strategies to get children involved in local berry and apple picking, while teaching them to become familiar with farms where their food is raised and harvested. Distinctly unpreachy, this book concludes that with a little know-how, you can eat sustainably wherever you live.

Lou Bendrick is a former newspaper reporter who went on to write for the Aspen Times, Northern Sky News and the High Country News syndicate, Writers on the Range. Her current work appears in publications such as Grist, Plenty, Whole Life Times and Orion Magazine. She lives and eats locally in the western Massachusetts town of Great Barrington with her husband, author Hal Clifford, and their two children.

Mountaineers Books publishes outdoor books focusing on recreation, activity, and adventure for those who participate with nature. Skipstone, a lifestyle imprint, celebrates the freedom and beauty of an outdoor lifestyle with humor, fun, friends and food. Braided River is a conservation imprint dedicated to inspire and motivate people to preserve wild places on which all life depends.