Museum Community Engagement Manager Kristine Bretall recommends This Immeasurable Place: Food and Farming from the Edge of Wilderness
Recipes from Hell’s Backbone Grill. Authors: Blake Spalding, Jennifer Castle, and Lavinia Spalding, with photography by Ace Kvale.
This is a book about food, place and community. Hell’s Backbone Grill is a restaurant, but it has become not just a restaurant, it’s a farm, a way of living and eating, and a source of education and an example of how to live a good life, and a community. I’ve not been there, yet.
In an alternate life, I live just like Blake and Jennifer in a place like Boulder, Utah. Small town, slow traffic, really quiet. Life and work are inextricable because they’re both so great. Maybe I even live and work there at Hell’s Backbone itself. Lots of dogs and other animals, incredible food grown locally, stunning scenery, and a close-knit group of humans making it happen in the best way possible.
It’s not an easy life. It looks idyllic from the outside, and when I’ve lived in a similar-ish way (working at a boarding school in Colorado), there was a wonderful rhythm in living with a community that all pulls in the same direction.
The book contains words of wisdom to live by, gorgeous photos, inspirational stories, poetry, book lists, and some rules for living in the middle of nowhere: close gates behind you, always keep a headlamp close, be nice to everyone, be respectful of local customs, always tell someone where you plan to hike.
One of my favorite chapters was food related, but I like to think of it in terms of “real life” … What to adopt and What to avoid. (their list includes “adopt noticing, adopt a habit of making what you eat and drink support your health and well-being” and “avoid unpronounceable ingredients, avoid poisons!, avoid hassling yourself about every food choice.”)
Another favorite section (because it’s really all my favorite) was the list of book suggestions: some I’ve read that I’ve loved: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, My Life in France by Julia Child, Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl … and not read yet: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, What Are People For? by Wendell Berry, Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit.
What else can I say? I loved it. And see what happened, it was a book that contained other books throughout it. And the recipes. Just made pork chops with apple-poblano chutney – really, really good. But those thick cut pork chops take a while to cook, just saying.
