It appears that someone at my local library has recently developed an interest in food issues outside of how to cook dinners in thirty minutes or less or creating a gour-may meal with a carefully chosen selection of boxes and cans. I know this because the complete works of Morgan Spurlock have materialized on the New Arrivals shelf, alongside any number of items by Michael Pollan and something called The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, which I could not put on my wait list fast enough (alongside another new offering, Food Not Lawns). Somebody at the acquisitions desk, it seems to me, is trying to make a point.

In addition to essay and theory a number of cookery books have also appeared, books which focus on what I think of as real cooking of the kind that my great-grandmother might have done. Among these are a number of canning books and I was thrilled, before my overdue fines became too high for me to do so, to check them all out at a go.

As it turns out only one of them really interested me, Frances Bissel's Preserving Nature's Bounty. And even it I was prepared to dislike upon reading the author's declaration that the book was about "[using] what friends might bring you from their country home." (Note to self: acquire better class of friends, see also: country homes.) In the end I came to appreciate the books despite the annoying introductory material because the recipes are unique and straightforward and sound really delicious. The organization is good, too, with recipes pertaining to a given food item gathered together - the mango section, for example, has mango ketchup (!), mango lime jam (!!) and mango salsa all together instead of all the jams in one place, all the salsas in another and all the ketchups off by themselves somewhere. I love this because if one finds a great buy on mangoes it will be easy to find things to do with mangoes without having to page through the entire book looking for mango recipes to compare. Genius.

When not reading canning or food theory books, I've been gardening with the kids. Spring gardening in particular is great with children because so much of what I can plant right now in my zone comes up really fast. We planted radishes, lettuce, beets, and spinach and will do more of each of these in a week or ten days or do. The rest of my garden plans are complete - tomatoes, squash, green beans, scarlet runners, peppers, strawberries, some new blueberries - and are nothing glamorous, but still enormously satisfying.