I was still surprised by the anthropocentric approach taken by this book, in spite of the author's protests to the contrary. I believe this is because the metaphor of the garden is as flawed as a complete world view and can't be anything but human-centered. After all, gardens are constructs of human agriculture, what Paul Sheperd teerms the 10,000-year mistake. It must be stressed again that the garden metaphor, in spite of our author's best intentions, fails to address this issue and capture all the richness of life on this planet, including what it means to be human.
Plain members exult in both their compassion and ferocity.
If we suppress or elevate one over the other, we do so at our own folly. Then again, my take may have to do with my own personal biases. I find these kinds of books arrogant, just another form of navel-gazing. It's not enjoyable to a forty-year old either. This collection of farm and Norwegian recipes from Wisconsin gives you lots of good simple home cooking with instructions.