Food Swap by Emily Pastor {Book Review}

Food Swap: Specialty Recipes for Bartering, Sharing & Giving --

Including the World's Best Salted Caramel Sauce

by Emily Pastor

Food Swap is quite the interesting concept for those who have a desire to barter their goods and reap more than just what they sow. Emily Pastor shares many tips and ideas on how to plan your own food swap in order to trade home-baked, canned goods, farm fresh foods, local produce, local honey, specialty foods, etc., within your community. This is such a wonderful idea for those who would like to broaden their food supply without affecting their cash flow. The photography in this book is beautiful! And, the author also shares a nice repertoire of recipes (and packaging tips) that you can use for your own home or a future food swap! I highly recommend this book for those of you who have a desire to add more bartering into their lifestyle. 

Description of book from Amazon:

"Whether your goal is to start your own community food swap, or just make delicious treats to share with family and friends, this is the book you need! Part cookbook, part how-to guide, Food Swap features more than 80 recipes for artisanal items that will be coveted at food swaps and adored as gifts, including preserves, baked goods, granolas, cheeses, pestos, roasted nuts, flavored salts, and specialty spices -- everything from salted caramel sauce and Meyer lemon curd to green tomato salsa, lavender shortbread, cultured butter, apricot jalapeno jelly, and rum vanilla extract. You’ll also find creative ways to irresistibly package your items, and the book even includes perforated gift tags ready for personalization. Finally, author Emily Paster -- co-founder of the Chicago Food Swap, one of the biggest in the world -- offers guidance on setting up a food swap in your own community, as well as inspiring stories from people who are part of this growing movement."

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Books with Candle and Quills Frame ~ Three Colors

“...but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”

~ Jane Austen

Scenic Bookplate in Three Colors

"Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital."

~ Thomas Jefferson

Stepping Heavenward

These illustrations are taken from an antique volume of my favorite book, Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss. 

Publisher's Description:

"Stepping Heavenward is an intimate journal of a young woman who struggles with ordinary daily life just as we do. Her life is a constant struggle to "step heavenward" as she deals with disappointment, heartache, and tragedy. You'll find it hard to believe that this journal has not be written with your own pen!"

This is such an encouraging read! I have read it three times already and have gleaned something new each time. Below are some of my favorite quotes from the novel...

“But you will imagine that it is best that He (God) should at once enable you to see clearly. If it is, you may be sure He will do it. He never makes mistakes. But He often deals far differently with His disciples. He lets them grope their way in the dark until they fully learn how blind they are, how helpless, how absolutely in need of Him. What His methods will be with you I cannot foretell. But you may be sure that He never works in an arbitrary way. He has a reason for everything He does. You may not understand why He leads you now in this way and now in that, but you may, nay, you must believe that perfection is stamped on His every act.”

~Excerpt from Stepping Heavenward

"But, oh! I am so selfish, and it is so hard to practice the very law of love I preach to my children! Yet I want this law to rule and reign in my home, that it may be a little heaven below, and I will not, no, I will not, cease praying that it may be such, no matter what it costs me."

~Excerpt from Stepping Heavenward

“And there are my children! My darling, precious children! For their sakes I am continually constrained to seek after an amended, a sanctified life; what I want them to become I must become myself."

~Excerpt from Stepping Heavenward

"This is the testimony of all the good books, sermons, hymns, and memoirs I read- that God's ways are infinitely perfect; that we are to love Him for what He is and therefore equally as much when He afflicts as when He prospers us; that there is no real happiness but in doing and suffering His will; and that this life is but a scene of probation through which we pass to the real life above."

~Excerpt from Stepping Heavenward

Children Reading Books in Black & White

"The habit of good reading once acquired will be of inestimable value to a child all his life. Great care should be exercised at first that a taste for good literature be not spoiled by an earlier perusal of the more trashy stories so easily obtained.

See that the children have at hand the right kind of books. If they get their books at a public library it is well to exercise a little oversight over what is chosen.

Most librarians are always glad to talk with mothers and give a list of the best books for children according to their ages. More personal attention is likely to be given your children, too, if a talk has been had with the librarian. Children sometimes draw out books presumably for their parents which are not exactly suited to their own needs. Also having a list of children's books yourself, you can always have a book ready to suggest. It is wise not to say much about the books of which you disapprove lest you implant the desire for the forbidden and mysterious. It is better to suggest good books than to censor bad ones.

Reading aloud with the children from the best class of books is a splendid way to cultivate a desire for them. It is often enjoyable to read together what to read alone might seem a little heavy.

Some children will need no urging to read, but on the other hand will be so fond of reading as to interfere with proper exercise and outdoor play. Books on nature subjects will be good for these children for if they become interested and learn to love the things of outdoors this in itself will act as an antidote for over-bookishness.

Best and most important of all is to teach them a love and appreciation of the Bible. It is our greatest literature, our truest guide to all that is good in life. In it is a never-ending source of pleasure and inspiration."

~ The above paragraphs are from a 1914 children's publication.

Here is a list of our favorite character building picture books.

Beloved Books

"A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down,

and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting."

~ Henry David Thoreau

"The things I want to know are in books.

My best friend is the man who'll get me a book I [haven't] read."

~ Abraham Lincoln

I must confess to a major weakness, hardcover books.

I love the smell of them and the sturdy beauty of them.

I love the care that is taken to make them.

I especially love the old, antique books with the beautiful covers.

Here in these pages you will find some of my favorites.

Are you a kindred spirit?

I do try and guard what is brought into our home.

For some inspiration on that, visit:

What to Read, What to Watch

Bible Study and Devotions

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,

and a light unto my path." 

~ Psalm 119:105

“A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.” 

~ Charles Spurgeon

Oh, loved the blessed Book,

To wandering sinners given,

To teach them all about the road

That leads from earth to heaven.

It tells of Him who died,

Our peace with God to make'

It shows how God is satisfied

With sinners for His sake.

It shows us what to do,

If we with Christ will dwell,

So plainly, that a child may know,

Who only reads it well.

~ Unknown

The Forbidden Book. "God's Holy Word was prized when 'twas unsafe to read it."

Searching The Scriptures. "Study to show thyself approved unto God." 2 Tim. 2:15.

“How Readest Thou?”

It is one thing to read the Bible through,

Another thing to read to learn and do.

Some read it with design to learn to read,

But to the subject pay but little heed.

Some read it as their duty once a week,

But no instruction from the Bible seek;

While others read it with but little care,

With no regard to how they read, nor where.

Some read to bring themselves into repute,

By showing others how they can dispute;

While others read because their neighbors do,

To see how long 'twill take to read it through.

Some read it for the wonders that are there,—

How David killed a lion and a bear;

While others read it with uncommon care,

Hoping to find some contradictions there.

Some read as if it did not speak to them,

But to the people at Jerusalem.

One reads with father's specs upon his head,

And sees the thing just as his father said.

Some read to prove a preadopted creed,

Hence understand but little that they read;

For every passage in the book they bend

To make it suit that all-important end.

Some people read, as I have often thought,

To teach the book instead of being taught;

And some there are who read it out of spite.

I fear there are but few who read it right.

But read it prayerfully, and you will see,

Although men contradict, God's words agree;

For what the early Bible prophets wrote,

We find that Christ and His apostles quote.

So trust no creed that trembles to recall

What has been penned by one and verified by all.

"Thy word have I hid in mine heart,

that I might not sin against thee."

~ Psalm 119:11