cover image Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally

Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally

J. B. MacKinnon, Alisa Smith. Harmony, $24 (264pp) ISBN 978-0-307-34732-9

Over a meal of fish, potatoes, and wild mushrooms foraged outside their cabin in British Columbia, the authors of this charmingly eccentric memoir decide to embark on a year of eating food grown within 100 miles of their Vancouver apartment. Thus begins an exploration of the foodways of the Pacific northwest, along which the authors, both professional writers, learn to can their own vegetables, grow their own herbs, search out local wheat silos and brew jars of blueberry jam. They also lose weight, bicker and down hefty quantities of white wine from local vineyards. Their engaging narrative is sprinkled with thought-provoking reportage, such as a UK study that shows the time people spend shopping the supermarket-driving, parking and wandering the aisles-is ""nearly equal to that spent preparing food from scratch twenty years ago."" Though their tone can wax preachy, the wisdom of their advice is obvious, and the deliciousness of their bounty is tantalizing-if local eating means a sandwich full of peppers, fried mushrooms, and ""delectably oozing goat cheese,"" their efforts appear justified.