ColumnThe beauty of real food boiled down into simple words.

Eat real food, and eat well.

Usually Foodie Underground is a lengthy column about some version of the six words above. Sometimes I feel that every week I am just trying to find a new and creative way to say the exact same thing: eat real food. One week it can be an argument for buying dirty vegetables, another a dive into the world of direct trade coffee. But ultimately, the message remains the same. And when you write the same message all the time, you have to learn how to switch it up.

So this week, I figured that I should try a different spin on it. Yes, today’s column is all about real food, just as usual, except today it’s not a column; it’s a collection of haikus.

Why haikus? Because like real food, haikus are simple. They get to the essence of things in just a few syllables. What better way to talk about the simplicity and beauty of real food than this?

With that, here are 10 haikus all about good, simple food and eating well.

Autumn always brings

Another harvest season

Ripe for the taking

Food on the table

Drink poured into every glass

Is this not living?

Easy, simple, fast

Is there better happiness

Than fridge leftovers?

If you cannot pick

What stares at you from the plate

Cannot be real food

Dirt on your fingers

Smell of rain permeating

This is how food grows

It begins a seed

Growing into mighty plant

Cut for sustenance

We were all seeds once

This we share with food we eat

Born from Mother Earth

War is waged daily

McDonalds, Burger King

Food battles we fight

Orange, red, yellow

Exploding from the table

Colorful season

We must breath and eat

Good food sustains the good life

Take time to enjoy

Related on EcoSalon

Think About Your Coffee Like You Think About Your Food: Foodie Underground 

The Question of Real Food: Does it Really Matter What You Eat? Foodie Underground

Real Food Shouldn’t Be Fashionable: Foodie Underground

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Anna Brones

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Have a vegetable garden? Then you’ll love these 5 cookbooks.

The point of starting a vegetable garden is of course to reap the benefits, aka eat the food you grow. Anyone who grows their own food will know the special feeling of putting together a meal with produce that comes from their own raised beds. To go from seed to plant to plate is an amazing process. And with more and more people starting to grow their own food, there are a growing number of garden related cookbooks.

But let’s be honest: these are inspiring books even if you don’t have the space to garden (or if your space is tiny). Ultimately they are celebrations of local and seasonal food, something we could all be eating more of.

1. “Carina Contini’s Kitchen Garden Cookbook” by Carina Contini

Part gardener’s journal, part family memoir, part cookbook, “Kitchen Garden Cookbook” will appeal to gardeners and food lovers of all kinds. It’s organized by month, which means that even in the seemingly dreary root vegetable overdose of the winter, you’ll still be able to to find some cooking inspiration.

2. “Kitchen Garden Experts: 20 Celebrated Chefs and Their Head Gardeners” by Cinead McTernan

Ever wonder how food goes from garden to table in the restaurants of chefs who are working hard to incorporate food grown on site? “Kitchen Garden Experts” brings us into the world of UK chefs and their gardeners, a book that’s as much about the products that are grown as the people that grow them.

3. “From Seed to Skillet” by Jimmie Williams

In “From Seed to Skillet” you actually get a gardening guide and cookbook in one. Learning the art of growing and cooking vegetables from his grandmother, a South Carolina native from a traditional Gullah community whose members were descendents of Caribbean slaves, his book serves as a guide to building your own vegetable garden and putting it to good use. Gardening guides and recipes abound.

4. “Grow Cook Eat” by Willi Galloway

Just because you love good food doesn’t mean you know how to garden. And just because you love to garden, doesn’t necessarily mean that you feel like a master in the kitchen. “Grow Cook Eat” is the book to fill that void. The book is devoted to cultivating fresh, gourmet food, ensuring that everyone has the skills to grow their own, but also that they know what to do with them.

5. “The Gardener and the Grill” by by Karen Adler and Judith Fertig

Who said that all you could do with a grill was meat? “The Gardener and the Grill” is for gardeners who believe in the power of the vegetable. With more than 100 vegetarian recipes, it’s the perfect summer guide to good eating. You could also kindly give it to the grill aficionado in your life to prove that vegetables do have a place over the coals.

Related on EcoSalon

5 Tips for Starting Your Own Urban Garden (Even if it’s Teeny Tiny)

10 Ideas for Sexy Urban Gardens

The 10 Easiest Vegetables to Grow at Home

Images: Anna Brones, Frances Lincoln, Chronicle Books, Sasquatch Books, Running Press

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Seven photos to inspire your culinary travel adventures. 

Do you travel to eat?

That might be taking it a little far, but if you’re a food lover, culinary experiences probably make up a large part of your travels, from tracking down macaroons in Paris to pasta induced food comas in Italy to yak butter tea in Tibet. Ok, maybe less so on the latter.

In honor of all the good food we love to eat when we travel, and to inspire a little sense of wanderlust, this week we are bringing you some of our Foodspotting faves from around the globe, from Vietnam to Denmark.

Pho, Vietnam

Nutella Crepe, France

Chole Poori, India

Moroccan Pastries, Morocco

Strawberry Cake, Denmark

Chile en nogado, Mexico

Happy traveling and eating!

In Foodspotting Friday we highlight one of Foodspotting’s – or our own – top picks from our Foodspotting guides. Be sure to check them out and tip us off to your own favorites in our Readers’ Picks guide. Want to start spotting food on your own? Join Foodspotting and take part in the food spotting revolution. It’s visual, it’s positive, it’s global and we are in love with it.

Images: Bay Area Foodie, Thirsty Pig, ButtercupD, amits, charline, annemette, Aleito1

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