Recommended (9/18/12)


Partially a record of the things I've read and enjoyed, partially a series of resources to share with interested persons, partially a list I wish I could make required reading for world .  Includes books, articles, blogs, and audiovisual materials.  Resources will be listed more than once if they are applicable in more than one category.  Always a work in progress (last updated September 18th 2012)

Death & Loss
Cooking, Baking, Preserving
  • Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine.  The only book you really need for canning, though I am exploring others.  This has everything: recipes for common canned goods, recipes for the serious home canner (like ketchup and chicken broth), clear directions for water baths and pressure canning.
Farming
  • Michigan Young Farmer Coalition. There website is not updated regularly but their email list is active and I get messages every week about grants, programs, workshops, resources, etc.  While you don't have to be from Michigan to benefit from their work, it does help make resources more relevant.
Feminism
Food
The UMSFP supports and connects all of the sustainable food initiatives and member groups on campus, ensuring that we all have the resources needed to succeed. Think of the UMSFP as the trunk of a tree and the member groups are the leaves and fruit, connected, supported, rooted in the same soil, working toward the same goal.
Food Systems & Policy

  • Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy - This website is chalk full of food policy and activism (don't let the name fool you).  Explore all the sections for some amazing information.  I became familiar with IATP after I attended a spiritual development workshop facilitated by LaDonna Redmond while in Vermont studying Sustainable Food Systems.  Right now, if I could be anyone in the world I would want to be LaDonna.

Gardening
Homesteading
  • Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes.  I list this first not because it is a great homesteading book but because it was the first book that brought me to where I am in homesteading.  Do not look for this book for skills but instead theoretical and academic insight into exactly what the subtitle says, "reclaiming domesticity from consumer culture."  This book helped me work through some issues I had with balancing feminism and the stay-at-home-woman.  It also first showed me that leaving academia for a path in homesteading isn't as crazy as it seemed.
  • Backyard Market Gardening: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Selling What You Grow by Andrew Lee.  While this book was published over 20 years ago it remains really up to date.  I loved ready this book and found it full of fantastic advice.  I'm amazed at how many farmer's market vendors don't use these old tactics for customer service.  Not listed under Gardening because it contains little to no actual growing information.  It is much more about harvesting, marketing, and selling your produce on a small scale for self-sufficiency.
Michigan Resources
The UMSFP supports and connects all of the sustainable food initiatives and member groups on campus, ensuring that we all have the resources needed to succeed. Think of the UMSFP as the trunk of a tree and the member groups are the leaves and fruit, connected, supported, rooted in the same soil, working toward the same goal.
  • Michigan Young Farmer Coalition. There website is not updated regularly but their email list is active and I get messages every week about grants, programs, workshops, resources, etc.  While you don't have to be from Michigan to benefit from their work, it does help make resources more relevant.
Sex
Social Justice

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