Ring it In

I'm still on a little holiday to get refreshed for the New Year ahead but I had to wish anyone who stumbles upon the Bonbon Project a Happy One.
I hope 2008 has wonderful things in store for all of you.

I love a break where I can get some reading done and right now, I'm finally finishing The Omnivore's Dilemma which I started in October- and am finally finding enough time to concentrate. Excited for his new In Defense of Food to come out this month. If your new year's resolution is to get healthy, gain knowledge and/or work on reducing your footprint, read him.

I came across the Eat Local Challenge and the 100-Mile Diet blogs/sites while searching the links on Michael Pollan's site. We try to do it in our own way but I know we can do so much better. I'm declaring January Buy and Eat Local Month for us.

Also found the 100-mile suit project. Such a wonderful idea. It reminds me of our visit to Ladakh in way Northern India. We got up there in mid-summer overland through the Punjab and Lahaul and Spiti--one of the few months the high mountain passes are passable and then still barely. We traveled from Leh, the biggest town in Ladakh and ended up at the house of a local temple painter in the tiny village of Likir in the summer of 1997. It was a beautiful place, set in a mustard field against a backdrop of high high mountains. There was an old Buddhist nun who lived in our guest house as well, who we'd often see spinning and dyeing and blocking wool for her robes or to sell as bolts in the local market in Leh. In fact we saw many people in different villages sitting outside making their clothes from raw materials, churning butter, harvesting crops and living a life much closer to the earth than we had ever seen before or since. I think this old interview with Helena Norberg-Hodge says it better than I can.

What an incredibly cool idea to try it here in the U.S., where it's more importamnt than ever to remind our people where their clothes (and food!) come from. Some pics from the 100-Mile Suit Project

Michael Pollan offers many great links and it's worth looking at all of them but here is a small list of my favorites:
The Chez Panisse Foundation
American Farmland Trust
The Cornucopia Institute
Local Harvest
Slow Food USA
The Edible Schoolyard