For your 2009 Resolutions

Ten Thousand Villages -- including the great store we have here in Salem, on Court Street just west of High -- is a wonderful chain of Mennonite-rooted fair trade stores. They offer two cookbooks that are just perfect for people wanting to eat better, healthier, more sustainable foods while saving money: much lower on the food web, with little or no meat, and in season.

The first is the "More with Less Cookbook" by Doris Janzen Longacre, a really nice basic first cookbook -- a sustainable improvement on the basic Betty Crocker. I would give this to any young person starting out in the world in a heartbeat.

With over 800,000 copies in print, the More-with-Less Cookbook has become the favorite cookbook of many families. Full of recipes from hundreds of contributors, More-with-Less gives suggestions "on how to eat better and consume less of the world's limited food resources."

More-with-Less Cookbook has not only changed how people eat, but their entire approach to life has reflected this more-with-less philosophy. In fact, more-with-less has become an integral part of our daily language.

When first published in 1976, More-with-Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre struck a nerve with its call for every household to help solve the world food crisis. Now with more than 800,000 copies around the globe. it has become the favorite cookbook of many families.

The second is even nicer and makes a great complement to More with Less: "Simply in Season" by Mary Beth Lind -- a luscious, season-specific book of recipes for all year round, concentrating on the foods widely available at the time. A wonderful book.

Not so long ago, within the memory of many of our parents and grandparents, most fruits and vegetables on North American tables came from our own gardens or from gardens close by, Eggs, milk, and meat also came from local sources.

Today, the average item of food travels over a thousand miles before it lands on our tables. It is a remarkable technological accomplishment, but it has not proven to be healthy for our communities, our land or us. Through stories and simple "whole foods" recipes, Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert explore how the food we put on our tables impacts our local and global neighbors.

They show the importance of eating local, seasonal food--and fairly traded food--and invite readers to make choices that offer security and health for our communities, for the land, for body and spirit. Commissioned by Mennonite Central Committee, the service and relief organization of the Mennnite and Brethren in Christ churches of Canada and the United States, this is the third book in the World Community Cookbook Series. The other two cookbooks are: More-with-Less and Extending the Table.