scratch cooking...yes or no?

In Jennifer Reese's book, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, she chronicles her life after she lost her job. She wondered about making food at home from scratch, is it really cheaper? Her experiments range from the doable (bread, bagels) to the truly ridiculous (butchering your own turkey, making vermouth!) Reese also includes "the hassle factor" and a cost comparison. I also found this book to be laugh-out-loud funny as she takes an ironic tone to describe her adventures in say, goat keeping or curing her own meats. Informative and witty, I loved this book! ML

ode to eating locally

The Feast Nearby: How I lost my job, buried a marriage and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering and eating locally (all on $40 week) by Robin Mather has it all. It is an entertaining story of an unemployed woman, on her own who is commited to cooking and eating well on a budget. She moves to a small cabin in rural Michigan with her dog and parrot. It is fun to read and includes 150 recipes. Mather's background as a food writer shines. She makes friends and trades her homemade preserves for garden produce and even gets chickens. I especially liked that she shares her knowledge of local Michigan companies such as Williams cheese. STE