February 21: Tovar Cerulli / The Mindful Carnivore

As a boy, growing up in Vermont, Tovar Cerulli spent his summers fishing for trout and hunting
bullfrogs. While still in high school, he began to experiment with
vegetarianism. By the age of twenty he was a vegan. A decade later, in
the face of declining health, he returned to omnivory and within a few
years found himself heading into the woods, rifle in hand.

In this time of intensifying concern over ecological degradation and
animal welfare, how do we make peace with the fact that, even by growing
organic vegetables, life is sustained by death? Drawing on personal
experience, philosophy, history, and religion, Cerulli shows how
America's overly sanitized habits of consumption have disconnected us
from our food, resulting in many of the spiritual and environmental
crises we now face.

In 2009, Cerulli was awarded a graduate school fellowship by the
University of Massachusetts, where his research has focused on food,
hunting, and human relationships with the natural world.

He lives in Vermont with his wife Catherine, their Labrador retriever, and an eclectic mix of cookbooks.

Tovar's mother, Fran Cerulli, worked at Bear Pond Books for years and Tovar could often be seen reading at the store.