Year of the Cow

February 23, 2015
Stone, a television producer in L.A., buys an entire butchered, grass-fed cowâbarely squeezing it into a freezer in his backyardâto learn more about the food his family eats, as well as to connect to his Kansas upbringing. As he starts to cook the cow, the experience changes various aspects of Stone's life. First, it causes a culinary revolution in his house, as he begins to pay more attention to what and how he cooks, including an eight-dish holiday feast, and beef-tongue tacos (which he includes his recipes for). Becoming more mindful of what he eats makes Stone more mindful of how he lives his life. As he tries the paleo diet, barefoot running, and shaving with an old-school straight razor, Stone sees the benefits of adopting ideas from the past that have been pushed aside by a world where everything is processed and disposable. He sprinkles in some more technical information about his cow's lineage, feedlots, processed foods, and industrialized diets, but Stone is at his best when he tells his own story with an affable, matter-of-fact style that is humorous and touching. His story is fun to consume and easy to digest.

January 15, 2015
Debut author Stone, Emmy-winning TV producer, wrangles a lively, informative, sometimes-intimate tale from his family's adventure eating a freezer full of beef over two years of culinary and lifestyle change.The author wanted to feed his family in the most environmentally and ethically responsible way without becoming a caricature of a fad-following New-Age epicure. Solution: whole foods; a whole cow, to be precise. Why beef? Partly as an homage to a Midwestern childhood "near the cattle trails of the High Plains." But mainly because he wondered how the experience of eating the entire grass-fed animal-free of antibiotics and growth hormones-might affect his mind and body. Cooking it respectfully, learning the vagaries of each individual cut, would also make him more than a passive consumer. It would reacquaint him with where his food actually came from, with ancestral foodways in eclipse, and maybe even help him find a "doorway to a more soulful life." Stone provides a primer on prime beef (choice, etc.), as well as a cattle history lesson stretching back nearly 9,000 years and a cautionary tale about how the post-World War II obsession with convenience and processed foods not only has deflected us from healthier and more fulfilling means of feeding ourselves, but infected all areas of life with a ticking-clock mentality. More, the author braises his book in his family's values. Most "charming domestic scenes" one is subjected to are anything but, but Stone's revealing set pieces are warm, winning and welcome. Readers will feel like guests in their home, privy to private fears and joys as well as gastronomic triumphs and catastrophes. Though Stone engages in a few meandering asides and perhaps tries to extract too much meaning from rather prosaic subjects, he nonetheless offers provocative thoughts on our carnivorous history and contemporary options, adding some tantalizing snout-to-tail recipes.

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