Reading List

Let's face it, I'm a nerd.  If you are too, here are some books to feed your inner geek.

Cook Books 

There is simply something about actual cook books.  Don't get me wrong, I use the internet too, but part of the kitchen experience is the tactile nature of cook books.  Here are my favs!

• The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook, America's Test Kitchen (2015)
• If you want to know how to be vegetarian, this is your guidebook.  In true America's Test Kitchen fashion, it's also full of really helpful, tried-and-true tips.
• Meatless, Martha Stewart (2013)
• Truthfully, this is not a must-have, but if you like Martha Stewart it is a very good Martha Stewart cookbook.
• More-with-Less (25th Anniv. Edition), Doris Janzen Longacre (2000)
• The subtitle of this one is, "Recipes and suggestions by Mennonites on how to eat better and consume less of the world's limited food resources," and that pretty much sums it up.  Originally published in 1976, leave it to the Mennonites to be on the forefront of the sustainability movement. 
• Simply in Season, Mary Beth Laird and Cathleen Hockman-Wert (2005)
• Published by the same folks who published More-With-Less, this cookbook is organized by season, and most of the recipes can easily be made with or without meat.
• Twelve Months of Monastery Soups, Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette (1996)
• Soup might be my favorite meal (my mom's Asian Chicken might be my first favorite...), and this book is full of great soup recipes organized by seasonal availability of the ingredients!

Local Foods Movements

I think there's something really special about local foods movements (admittedly, we do need to talk about how to make them less bougie).  If eating is about relationship, then buying food your neighbors make is pretty close to heaven.

• Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution, Jennifer Cockrall-King

Agriculture

 Farming!

• The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land, edited by Norman Wirzba
• Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible, Ellen F. Davis

Sustainability/Ecology

Here's where we make all the moral arguments!

• Making Peace with the Land: God's Call to Reconcile with Creation, Fred Bahnson and Norman Wirzba
• The Body of God: An Ecological Theology, Sallie McFague
• God, Neighbor, Empire: The Excess of Divine Fidelity and the Command of Common Good, Walter Brueggemann
• The Art of Loading Brush: New Agrarian Writings, Wendell Berry

Householding/Homesteading

Did anybody else's family move to the country to learn to be self-sufficient?  Did anybody else's parent want to buy five-gallon buckets of freeze-dried foods in case of apocalypse?  No?  Just me?  Okay then...  But there are entirely sane ways to learn about healthy engagement with the destructive powers of consumerism.

• The Householder's Guide to the Universe: A Calendar of Basics for the Home and Beyond, Harriet Fasenfest

Embodied Theology

"Embodied Theology" is a fancy phrase that means "how we experience God in our lived-out life".  In my estimation, this is the whole point of theology (why does what we say about God matter for our lives?), but some folks do like to argue for the fun of it.

• Good Food: Grounded Practical Theology, Jennifer R. Ayres
• Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating, Norman Wirzba
• To the Table: A Spirituality of Food, Farming, and Community, Lisa Graham McMinn
• Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight, Norman Wirzba
• Soil and Sacrament: A Spiritual Memoir of Food and Faith, Fred Bahnson
• Grounded: Finding God in the World--A Spiritual Revolution, Diana Butler Bass

Sacraments

"Sacraments" are the church's way of talking about tangible things that show us God's invisible presence.  I think food is one of those things.  Jesus ate a meal with his friends that we still get together to celebrate.

• For the Life of the World, Alexander Schmemann

Liturgy/Ritual

Rituals are events that we do again and again to help harness the meaning of our life.  Think about a holiday meal with family--would it be the same if one of the fundamental dishes or people were missing?  That's because over time we've given meaning to that particular thing.  It signifies the experience to such an extent that it shapes the meaning.  The way we eat (especially when we remember Jesus' meal with his friends) is a ritual that shapes meaning for our lives.

• Rehearsing God's Just Kingdom: The Eucharistic Vision of Mark Searle, Stephen S. Wilbricht