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Book Review & GIVEAWAY: "Well Preserved" by Eugenia Bone

More and more Americans preserve and can food

Food prices, more time at home... there's a number of reasons.

The book "Well Preserved: Recipes and Techniques for Putting Up Small Batches of Seasonal Foods"
by Eugenia Bone calmed my fears about canning.  Eugenia says get the right equipment (pressure cooker, etc.) and pay attention and you will be fine! 

Eugenia explains what the food "spoilers" are, how acidy foods preserve better, like lemons and tomatoes.  Stories about her Italian father and his home-cured Proscuitto make you feel "warm & cozy".  The recipes are "to die for".  Eugenia does all this preserving in a SoHo apartment in New York City.  A lot of her food comes from Farmer's Markets.  Yumm... this is a great book --- detailed how-to PLUS yummy recipes.

VABOOMER is offering this book as a GIVEAWAY

-- just send an email to

contact@boomermade.com

We'll select a lucky someone on June 24.

Get A (Wine) Buzzzzz On---Organically

False Debate over Nourishing Vineyards

I'm always puzzled about the debate over organic VS non-organic farming/gardening practices.

That conversation/debate is now extending to organically grown grapes for wine making. Less than 60 years ago, almost everyone farmed everything organically. Synthetic fertilizers did not exist. Farmers used heavy mulches, green cover crops which were planted in the winter and then plowed under (winter rye and red clover being two favorites), and manure. That's the way my family farmed. We had good crops, healthy ones with few bugs or wilts, rich land and delicious smelling dirt!

And didn't all vineyards everywhere rely on these same practices as well? They must have. They had to have had, because there were no fertilizers other than cow, pig, chicken and horse manure. No waste, no want.

Organic = No sulphites

Thank you for honoring her."> I am not a wine expert, in fact one of the reason I rarely drink wine is that sulphites in most of today's wines give me galloping headaches and shooting eye pains. YUCK!! who would want to drink and feel so horrible? But the new organics may change my habits. It does sound nice to sit out on a summer evening with a chilled glass of white wine, good friends and a lovely sunset. Ummmmmmmmm.

Here is an interesting Forbes Article on this issue.  And one factor in longevity is tied to a small consumption daily of drink. Just make mine organic.

Michelle O's Oh So Organic White House Garden--the chemical guys don't like it

It's Time for Us Sprouts and Bean Boomers to Stand up

The Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) has a bone to pick with Michelle Obama. MACA represents chemical companies that produce pesticides, and they are angry that - wait for it - Michelle Obama isn't using chemicals in her organic garden at the White House.

I am not making this up.

In an email they forwarded to their supporters, a MACA spokesman wrote
MACA Letter
, "While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made [us] shudder." MACA went on to publish a letter it had sent to the First Lady asking her to consider using chemicals -- or what they call "crop
protection products" -- in her garden.

Michelle Obama and has done America a great service by publicizing the importance of nutritious food for kids (she's growing the garden in partnership with a local elementary school class) as well as locally grown
produce as an important, environmentally sustainable food source.

I just signed a petition telling MACA's board members to stop using Michelle Obama's garden to spread propaganda about produce needing to be sprayed with chemicals. I hope you will, too.

Please have a look and take action.

Petition to Support Michelle Obama's Garden

Thanks!