Local Food Cookbook Idea

Email From : diane williamson doubleanne@hotmail.com

Hi Jim,I am still in the planning and publicizing stage, but I am envisioning a book filled with recipes and information that can help people use more local produce (veggies mostly, but I am thinking of doing it by season, so I want to cover the Winter withe cheeses and meets, as well as canning). I want to highlight local farms and dairies, so I think a lot of the recipes will be amongst profiles or interviews, as well as descriptions and how-tos for the less-familiar foods. My goal is to have it done by Jan. 2011, but I am also still thinking about means of getting it published, and exploring the possibility of different formats (like hooking up with the edible NY magazine.) If you could spread the word, I would appreciate it- everyone has a great recipe or funny story about something local. I'll attach the CFR. Diane

Introducing The New Environment Blog

What is The New Environment to You?

I've been involved in The New Environment Association (see link in "Groups" ) for some time now and learning key concepts and approaches to understanding the "psychophysical" condition humanity is in and where we are going. So I think about the "new environment" that we create in our new way of thinking and living. To me, the ecological dream I am following is the sustainable and ecological future needed to continue human life on earth. I learned a long time ago, during a lucid direct connect with Gaia, that Earth will live no matter what. You've heard that before: life wants to live. So does the Earth. It's rather audacious for the two-legged mammal called "mankind" to assume so much power as to be able to destroy the host(ess)! So then what's the fuss? The real question is whether humans get to live on earth for another few hundred thousand years or so! To be contemplating a choice like this is a cosmic-sized, mythic proportioned, mind-boggling, heart-stopping, vision questing question to ponder!

What does the idea of a "New Environment" mean to you? Now is the time to imagine what it is like to live in a world that is friendly to plants, animals, sacred places, and humans for a long, long time. Utopia? Of course! Go for it! Impossible? Why not? So what? As John sang: "Imagine. . ."

The New Environment is the manifestation of a comprehensive vision of all the attributes and aspects needed to work together as a systemic whole for sustaining human and planetary life indefinitely -- time out of mind. Being comprehensive makes the concept hard to grasp, like Life Itself. The reality is always something ineffable because words are just symbolic descriptors and not the thing they describe. If there's no reference point, then there is no language. Perhaps The New Environment is too new to have an adequate language. [Harry, I think this is what you were saying at the NEA picnic.) Now what?

I like to think of the "new environment" as a state of mind -- a way of looking at Life and World and Self and Other. . . . Perhaps it is an attitude, a mindset, a perspective, an assumption that allows us to see the beauty and sacredness and goodness of life even in this very moment that you read these words -- and in each now to live accordingly. If we do not live The New Environment now, then when? Of course, it's much more complicated than that! Hence the blog and your comments are needed!

Perhaps , together, we can write the next chapter about this transformative journey toward life on earth for our children's children's children. . . .