Gonna Live Off th' Fatta th' Lan

I have a tragic tendency for checking impossibly large piles of books out of the library.  Coupled with my delusions of ultimate domesticity and knocking up against my natural laziness, distractability and forgetful procrastination, you have a recipe for super-stoked-and-ain't-never-gonna-happen mental disaster.


Today I went to pick up a copy of Daisy Cooks! Latin Flavors That Will Rock Your World that was on hold for me at the library (at least I know I will cook some food - THAT I can do).  I LOVE watching her on PBS.  I get SO hungry - her food is beautiful and terrible for you and I want to just plunge my arms into the pot and hug it and hug her and her little east coast accent.  While there I wandered into the cookbook section and found Washington Local and Seasonal Cookbook and Slow Food Nation.  (Of course, spitting right in the face of these two acquisitions I stuffed my face today with a quarter-pounder, fries and a soda from McDonalds.  What can I say, I'm well-rounded.)  Then I saw another amusing treasure - Storey's Basic Country Skills: A Practical Guide to Self-Reliance.  Pages and pages of summaries on how to run your own little country home from start to finish.  Handy tips on how to:

• buy land
• dig a well
• rotate your crops
• make cheese
• butcher livestock
• shear sheep
• keep bees

I actually really want to try to make some cheese but I have a nagging fear that I might just end up poisoning myself...