SKU: 25519128766

The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love

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The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and LoveFrom a "graceful, luminous writer with an eye for detail," this riveting memoir explores a year on a sustainable farm and the real world epitome of Michael Pollan's food philosophy. "This book is the story of the two love affairs that interrupted the trajectory of my life: one with farming that dirty, concupiscent art and the other with a complicated and exasperating farmer." Single, thirtysomething, working as a writer in New York City, Kristin

From a "graceful, luminous writer with an eye for detail," this riveting memoir explores a year on a sustainable farm--and the real world epitome of Michael Pollan's food philosophy.

"This book is the story of the two love affairs that interrupted the trajectory of my life: one with farming--that dirty, concupiscent art--and the other with a complicated and exasperating farmer."

Single, thirtysomething, working as a writer in New York City, Kristin Kimball was living life as an adventure. But she was beginning to feel a sense of longing for a family and for home. When she interviewed a dynamic young farmer, her world changed. Kristin knew nothing about growing vegetables, let alone raising pigs and cattle and driving horses. But on an impulse, smitten, if not yet in love, she shed her city self and moved to five hundred acres near Lake Champlain to start a new farm with him. The Dirty Life is the captivating chronicle of their first year on Essex Farm, from the cold North Country winter through the following harvest season--complete with their wedding in the loft of the barn.

Kimball and her husband had a plan: to grow everything needed to feed a community. It was an ambitious idea, a bit romantic, and it worked. Every Friday evening, all year round, a hundred people travel to Essex Farm to pick up their weekly share of the "whole diet"--beef, pork, chicken, milk, eggs, maple syrup, grains, flours, dried beans, herbs, fruits, and forty different vegetables--produced by the farm. The work is done by draft horses instead of tractors, and the fertility comes from compost. Kimball's vivid descriptions of landscape, food, cooking--and marriage--are irresistible.

"As much as you transform the land by farming," she writes, "farming transforms you." In her old life, Kimball would stay out until four a.m., wear heels, and carry a handbag. Now she wakes up at four, wears Carhartts, and carries a pocket knife. At Essex Farm, she discovers the wrenching pleasures of physical work, learns that good food is at the center of a good life, falls deeply in love, and finally finds the engagement and commitment she craved in the form of a man, a small town, and a beautiful piece of land



Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Published: 04/12/2011
ISBN: 9781416551614
Pages: 287
Weight: 0.52lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.80d
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SKU: 25519128766

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Andrea Forero
Bozeman, US
★★★★★ 5
Perfect condition
Format: Paperback
Came with ebook and in great condition. Trust me, you should get the ebook with this thick book. Lifesaver when it comes to taking reading notes. Cheaper than what the price at the school bookstore.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2025
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Marine BARJOL
Lake Worth, US
★★★★★ 5
Law school book
Format: Paperback
Served it’s purpose
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Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2021
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DB
Alexandria, US
★★★★★ 4
Good Law School Book for 1st Year Students
Format: Paperback
Good law school book for first year students.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2025
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Sarah
Draper, US
★★★★★ 5
Kindle version is great
Format: eTextbook
Easy to read and formatted well!
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Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2021
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Elizabeth Doyle
Draper, US
★★★★★ 1
The online version is missing part 3 and Aspen Publishing refuses to provide it.
Format: Paperback
I purchased the hard copy with online version. The online version is missing part 3 and Aspen Publishing refuses to provide it. I no longer have the hard copy because I gave it to a classmate.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2023

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