Back to Welcome Page

Up Close and Personal with Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

In a departure from the usual format, five AAUW Fremont Branch members and enthusiasts of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver passed along their favorite parts of the book to a Federated Women’s Club meeting on March 2 at St. James Episcopal Church in Fremont.

The idea was to motivate Washington Township women to read the book and absorb its important message.

The five members were:   Genevieve Angelides, Margery Leonard, Carol Ramos, Shirley Gilbert and Kathy Garfinkle.

The speakers each had their own unique, favorite parts that reflected their personalities and interests.

• Genevieve opened the session with an explanation of how the One Book, One Community program came about and how the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle book was selected.  She reminded us that in November Mayor Wasserman encouraged all Fremont citizens to read this outstanding and important non-fiction work.

• Margery gave an overview of the book.   “Think back 150 years in Washington Township,” she said.   “People ate from the land and knew that food had seasons.   They also realized that food was best eaten in season.”   Margery passed along Kingsolver’s motivation for spending a year in the life of her family growing their own food:   She wanted to teach her children the connection between the food they eat and how it is grown.

• Carol talked about the vegetable part of the book and our penchant for enjoying vegetables from around the world.  “The cost of bringing these vegetables to our area, in terms of the carbon footprint they consume, is very high.  While we can’t be perfect and don’t want to give up everything, the book taught me to be much more aware of where our food comes from,” said Carol.  She passed along, from Kingsolver’s husband Steven Hopp, that “if we ate one meal a week locally. we would save 1.1 billion barrels of fuel a week.”

• Shirley concentrated on the charming character of second grader Lily, who fell madly in love with her chickens, their eggs (she sold them) and selling the “mean ones” for meat.  Lily grew in independence and responsibility during the year, raising enough money to buy a horse.  Shirley also talked about the sex life of turkeys (bizarre but nothing to write home about) and the dialogue in the book about the killing of animals.  “To believe,” wrote Kingsolver, “that we can live without taking life is delusional.”

• Kathy was fascinated by the “Miracle” part of the book and the spiritual nature and benefits of growing and then eating the food you make.  Kathy communicated the reverence that the author feels at Thanksgiving.  “Wake up” said an impassioned Kingsolver, “ and look alive, for here is a day off work just to praise the Creator.”

The almost 20 club members in Washington Township reported that they thoroughly enjoyed the five different perspectives.  Many said they would be more aware, and others said they would like to read the book.  One member, who had read the book, tried some of Camille’s recipes (lamb quesadillas in particular) and raved about them.