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"Buying and preparing food with others in your community is a great way to save money while providing your family with wholesome, home-made meals." ~ author Andrea Belcham Food and Fellowship
provides everything you need to know about how to organize and
manage both a food buying club and a batch cooking group. And it
even includes one hundred delicious vegan recipes to get you started. Our society is privileged in the
variety and amount of foods available to those with the money to
purchase them. Yet much of what is on the menu – much of what
consumers rely on the feed themselves and their loved ones –
fails to truly nourish a body, let alone a spirit. Across the
nation, people are loading their grocery carts with highly
processed foods, or they are tucking into fast food meals, in
the name of saving time and making space for the things that
“really matter.” But what really matters to author Andrea
Belcham and many others is that she and her family are both
healthy and happy. The route she takes towards achieving this
emphasizes quality food. As a stay-at-home mother in a
one-income household, she has neither an abundance of time nor a
lot of money to spend acquiring and preparing food. Her
solution, which she presents in Food and Fellowship, is to
combine her skills and resources with others in her community to
make possible opportunities that she couldn’t access alone. A buying club represents a strategy for
purchasing good food without breaking the bank, and a batch
cooking group is a means for individuals to prepare nutritious
food that is convenient without being costly. These are steps that can help people from
many different walks of life become empowered and knowledgeable
regarding their food choices. They also give people the chance to learn from and
teach others – to feel that they are an integral part of
something bigger than themselves.
The second part of the book offers 100 recipes
using whole foods. These are dishes to make using the food
staples acquired through a buying club, and recipes that are
tasty additions to the batch cooking group’s repertoire. The
recipes are all easily doubled or trebled for bulk cooking, and
they tolerate freezing well. They are simple to prepare and they
use inexpensive ingredients. They are also all vegan, because, when applied thoughtfully, a vegan diet is an
effective way of nurturing good health on a budget. And of course,
they’re also delicious! Soups and stews, vegetables and side
dishes, entrées, baked goods, and desserts are included. Finishing off the book is a comprehensive
appendix with tips on economizing with food; information about
food safety for batch cooking; a whole foods glossary; a table
listing the shelf life of some staple foods that you might want
to buy in bulk; a list of vegan kitchen staples; suggested
discussion topics for the new batch cooking group; a batch
cooking group equipment list; wording for a batch cooking group
recruitment poster; and a sample batch cooking group funding
request letter. * * * * "Buying locally-sourced natural food ingredients in bulk and preparing them in batches in a community kitchen are sustainable, healthy, and frugal ways to feed yourself and your family. These activities can also develop bonds among neighbors, fight hunger, contribute to parenting skills and improve family life, integrate marginalized people into a community, and be great fun. Food and Fellowship is your guide to all of that and more. "Author Andrea Belcham has turned her considerable experience with buying clubs and batch cooking into this very helpful and inspirational guide. She has provided you with all the tools you need (except the food and the pots and pans!) for you and a group of friends, neighbors, or relatives to feed your families and your community. The delicious recipes have been tested by Andrea’s own batch cooking group. I’ve tried some of them and can attest to their ease of preparation as well as their wholesome deliciousness. These are healthy, homemade meals that nourish both the body and the soul." from the introduction, by Wendy Priesnitz, editor of Natural Life Magazine The second title in Natural Life Magazine's Green Living Series Natural Life Magazine is the original natural family living magazine, founded in 1976. Its print and digital editions are reader-supported and trusted by thinking people around the world who want positive, sustainable alternatives to high cost, high consumption lifestyles for themselves and their families. |
Natural Life Books specializes in adult non-fiction about ways that families and individuals can live and learn on Planet Earth in a healthy, socially responsible, environmentally sound, self-reliant manner. We are the retail division of The Alternate Press, an imprint of Life Media, an independent, family-owned book and magazine publishing house established in 1976. We are proud to publish some of the most progressive books and other information products about homeschooling and life learning (also known as unschooling) in the world. Read our Sustainability Statement |
About the Author:
Andrea Belcham studied and worked in the publishing
industry for nearly a decade before shifting focus to two
long-time passions: food and sustainability. Her hunt for local
foods to nourish her young family not being satisfied at the
grocery store, she began to shop farmers’ markets, joined a CSA,
and started growing vegetables – first in a community garden,
then in her own backyard. When she noticed other friends and
neighbors also rejecting conventional food shopping routes and
attempting to become more active participants in food production
and distribution systems, she looked at ways to collectively
gain empowerment within an urban setting. Two major projects
were born: the batch cooking group, comprised of six women
uniting once a month in a church kitchen to cook vegan meals for
their families; and the natural foods buying club, with a
fluctuating membership of about ten families, that orders
foods in bulk from a distributor every two months and meets to
sort it in Andrea’s living room. When she isn’t growing,
gathering, or cooking, Andrea also reviews books on the topics
of food and the environment, and teaches vegetarian cooking
classes and workshops.
A vegetarian for twenty
years, Andrea lives in Pointe Claire, Quebec, with her husband
and daughter.