Teaser Tuesday: Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal

If it's the government's responsibility to make sure that no person can ingest a morsel of unsafe food, then only government-decreed food will be edible.  And when that happens, freedom of choice is long gone, because the credentialed food will be what the fat cats who wine and dine politicians say that it is.

-- Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front by Joel Salatin.  

 

Joel Salatin is the owner of Polyface Farms, "the farm of many faces," in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.  He was featured in Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and stole the show as the big-hatted farmer in Farmageddon.

 

 

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

 

Food Freedom is on Facebook and twitter. Click on the chicken for more information.

This counts as one of my books for the Foodie's Reading Challenge, hosted by Margot at Joyfully Retired.

 

Mailbox Monday & GIVEAWAY!

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

Life in the Thumb is hosting in August.  Please visit Staci's fun and cheerful blog for some great reading inspiration.

I got one book last week and am hosting a giveaway for it (see details below).

LAST WEEK'S GIVEAWAY WINNER

But first, the winner of last week's giveaway of Who in This Room: The Realities of Cancer, Fish, and Demolition by Katherine Malmo is Anna at Diary of an Eccentric. Anna will get her own ARC of this new memoir and the opportunity to host a giveaway of her own for another copy. 

THIS WEEK'S BOOK & GIVEAWAY

From This Wicked Patch of Dust by Sergio Troncoso.   

THE BOOK: In the border shantytown of Ysleta, Mexican immigrants Pilar and Cuauhtémoc Martinez strive to teach their four children to forsake the drugs and gangs of their neighborhood. The family's hardscrabble origins are just the beginning of this sweeping new novel from Sergio Troncoso.

THE GIVEAWAY: Thanks go to Mary Bisbee-Beek, an incredibly diligent book publicist, for providing two ARCs for a "leap-frog" giveaway.

The leap-frog part is that I have one ARC to giveaway.  The winner will get to host another giveaway for the second ARC.

The contest is open until Sunday, August 21, 2011. To enter, do any or all of the following, but you must leave a comment for each one:

1. Leave a comment on this post. You must include a way to contact you (email or website address in your comment or available in your profile). If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner. (1 entry)

2. Blog about this giveaway. (Posting the giveaway on your sidebar is also acceptable.) Leave a separate comment with a link to your post. (1 entry)

3. Subscribe to my rss feed, follow me on blogger, or subscribe via email (or tell me if you already are a subscriber or follower). Leave a separate comment for this. (1 entry)

4. Tweet this post on Twitter. Leave me a separate comment with your twitter user name. (1 entry)

5. Stumble this blog, digg it, technorati fave it, or link it on facebook. Leave a separate comment. (1 entry)

There are a lot of ways to enter (maximum of five entries), but you must LEAVE A SEPARATE COMMENT for each one or they will not count. I will use random.org to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is open to entries from the U.S. and Canada only. The deadline for entry is 9:00 PM, Pacific Time, on Sunday, August 21, 2011. I will draw and post the winner's name in my Mailbox Monday post for August 22, 2011.

Happy Birthday Jazz Cats!

Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday celebrate their first birthday today! They are officially cats now instead of kittens.

They may not be the irresistible balls of fuzz they were when we first brought them home from the Humane Society . . .

. . . but they are our number one source of entertainment.  They play Synchronized Patrol, Crinkle Ball Soccer, and Bug Attack; enjoy two kinds of kitty wrestling, Big Tail Battle and a more stylized form based on Japanese Noh theater; and have a hundred other little ways and habits that keep us laughing all day long.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE JAZZ CATS!

Opening Sentence of the Day: Everything I Want to do is Illegal

"But is it legal?" . . . . is by far and away the most common question I am asked after doing a workshop on local food systems and profitable farming principles.

-- Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front by Joel Salatin. 

Joel Salatin is the owner of Polyface Farms, "the farm of many faces," in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.  He was featured in Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and stole the show as the big-hatted farmer in Farmageddon.

Salatin is quite a character.  He describes himself as a "Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist" and pulls no punches when explaining his views on how farming should be done and people fed.

He's also a good writer with a sense of humor and a big heart.  The book is a pleasure to read even while it gets your blood boiling over the petty tyrannies of government agencies doing their best to thwart small farmers and other agricultural entrepreneurs.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Food Freedom is on Facebook and twitter. Click on the chicken for more information.

This counts as one of my books for the Foodie's Reading Challenge, hosted by Margot at Joyfully Retired.

Review: Very Bad Men

Very Bad Men is the second in Harry Dolan's Ann Arbor series featuring crime magazine editor, David Loogan. For Loogan, finding a mystery story left at his office door is nothing unusual. But when the anonymous manuscript starts with the confession of a recent murder and identifies the next victim, Loogan and his police detective girlfriend vault into action.

The story never stops from there. A 17-year-old bank robbery is the link between the murder victims, a retiring U.S. Senator, the bright young woman running for his seat, an ambitious tabloid reporter, and a dozen or so other suspects, suckers, and side-shows.

Dolan's first Loogan novel, Bad Things Happen (reviewed here), was another rip-roarer that had more of a literary theme, with authors and editors murdering each other. It was great, but this one is even better. Bad Things got a little ramshackle and some of the plot threads frayed. Bad Men is more polished and hangs together right to the end.

Dolan is an exceptional storyteller whose writing is so good it is invisible. Reading the book feels like living the story along with the characters. Hopefully this is the second of what will be a very long series.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.