Book Club is tonight. The book is called "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Unfortunately, I was only able to get through June before the book had to go back to the library. The book club also marks the "official" return of a former member whom we voted back in. I organized the anonymous poll on freeonlinesurveys.com. I would be interested to know who voted Yes and who voted No. And one person abstained from voting. I know who it was. She felt that she could not vote one way or the other because she did not want to hurt anyone's feelings.

December will be the start of our 5th year of book club. I really love going and for the most part, have always finished the books. It is unfortunate that I had to return this one on Tuesday else I would have completed it. I will probably borrow someone's copy and finish it at another time. Anyway, we have one member who almost NEVER reads the book. Sometimes she has not even picked it up. And mostly she has read just a few chapters of it. Another member has missed about half the meetings since she started (she was not an original member). That bugs me! And often her reasons are things like "we have birthdays next week and I have to prepare" as if the three hours at book club will this week be the make or break it for her party prep. Now, if it were a one time thing, sure I could see that. But it is often.

Back to this current book - it is about eating only locally-grown (as in what this family grows) foods for one year. They can buy or trade with local farmers and friends but that is it. It is an interesting concept. So no strawberries in October. Of course it totally made me think twice about what I was going to take tonight. Lately, I had been taking veggie trays. But looking through Safeway today, I noticed the red peppers that are on sale are from Mexico. And I am sure that celery is not "in season" in WA either. In the end, I made meringue cookies (hopefully the eggs are not from too far away) with organic chocolate chips (not local and hopefully "fair trade" chocolate. Plus they were on sale ;)

Ok, off to make dinner for my family then get ready for book club. Looking forward to the sparks flying (there will be no avoiding political talk with the impending election).