Morning everyone,
Just a quick post before I head out on morning errands – and into the garden, it’s SUNNY!!
I belong to a list-serve called “beyond factory farming” which fills my inbox with tons of interesting material on the issue of factory farming in Canada. Not always breakfast reading, but interesting nonetheless. If you want to get more involved, please sign up on their website: beyond factory farming .
Check out this great article from the National Farmers Union. (I’ve joined them recently and will post about that later – You’ve never see a girl so excited to get a union card in the mail.)
Common sense is going out of style; thank god for farmers.
“Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.”
A commentary on behalf of the National Farmers Union Ontario
By Grant Robertson
In the wake of the news of a Listeriosis outbreak at Maple Leaf Foods I observed in a 2008 commentary that it was likely that governments would bring in a whole new set of rules, claim it was thus doing something about food safety, yet most of those rules would actually have almost nothing to do with producing safer food. I went on to predict that a goodly number of those rules would hit small, local processors the hardest, when ironically they have not been the source of most problems.
It was not much of a prediction as it only takes a cursory knowledge of the history of our regulatory regime to know that this is exactly what happens time and time again. Now this is not some “all regulations are bad” rant. Frankly that belief, peddled by some is just foolish. Good and smart regulations not only protect the processor, they protect the farm and the consumer. Smart regulations make sense. However, far too often the regulations around food safety are meant to give the appearance of doing something instead of actually addressing some fundamental questions about the way we now process food in an industrial-scale setting.
According to a column in the St. Marys Journal Argus, by intrepid columnist Stew Slater, and an article in the Stratford Beacon Herald by Donal O’Connor, the prediction of ‘tighter’ rules is coming true. A long-standing business with a good reputation, Mogk’s Custom Killing and Butcher Shop, is facing rules that make little sense. According to the article one of the things the shop is in violation of is having painted steel rather than stainless steel shelving to house the wrapped and packaged meat in their freezers. Apparently the wood panelling in the office area is a major threat to health as well; how seems hard to figure, but that is one of the issues they face. A smoke-house would be required to switch to all stainless steel, which of course then requires harsh chemical cleansers, which would cause problems for their certified organic farm customers. Now in case you think this is an unusual case let me tell you that these sorts of stories abound in rural Ontario.
Let’s look at this stainless steel shelving in the freezer requirement. Here’s how these things likely happen. Government people get together, in good faith, and say we need to make a standard. Someone says – ‘okay let’s make the standard stainless steel.’ Not because stainless steel is inherently safer than say a painted metal surface for wrapped and packaged meats, but because now we have a single standard. So inspectors are sent out to enforce this standard- and they do- and voila you have a completely non-sensical rule that has no real appreciable impact on food safety, but you do have an enforced standard you can point to as being kept stringently.
And it is small processors left to pick up the tab. These processors are the lynch pin in local food being available. Without them there simply is not local meat available. They are a precious resource that needs to be strengthened and enhanced, not driven out of business.
The excellent Stratford Beacon Herald article by Donal O’Connor quotes an Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs official. If you want to understand the pressures small local processors and butcher shops and their farmer customers, who then sell to the public, have you need only put the two quotes together. They speak louder than anything I could say. The article first quotes the official speaking about a program that was meant to help local processors and butchers- notice the term “up to” which probably means most applicants would have received far less –
Funding of up to $25,000 to help with bringing facilities up to code was made available to small facilities through the OIMP.
Later the same official states;
that the average cost to operators for upgrades has been about $165,000.
So on average, local, small processors are being asked to come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars to meet standards and government is only prepared to assist to a level of up to $25,000. A cost created by government, but for which the local processor or butchers will have no extra income to speak of to pay that cost from. No wonder some believe that government is only paying lip service to the importance of local food and farmers being able to make a living growing that food.
You can view a copy of the entire Stratford Beacon Herald article here; http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2285478
The title is a quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States of America
Here’s a few things to ask yourself as you’re planning your garden (which will be lovely and creative and not even a shadow of it’s former square self!) :
First things first – Do you have sun?
If you don’t have at least a few sunny spots you’re going to be limited as to what you can grow. If you have mostly shade, don’t despair, but don’t hold your breath waiting for your peppers to ripen, either. Instead turn your mind to veg that prefer a break from the heat – leafy greens, some herbs, cabbage and anything that might bolt if they got too hot. Now start sweet talking your neighbour with the south-facing lawn to let you plant peppers and tomatoes there.
What do you like to eat?
No point in planting a ton of veg that you can’t stand the taste of. In our house, we plant insane numbers of tomatoes because we adore them and will take the time to can them. That said, somethings are worth planting even if you don’t absolutely love them yourself. Even at 28 years old I still don’t like brussels sprouts, but I know they will look striking in the garden come winter. (my mum’ll eat ‘em.) Also keep a mind to what kind of veg are expensive in the store or at the farmer’s market, or where store bought can never compare to homegrown. Especially if you’re short on space, pick veg like peppers, heirloom tomatoes, fancy herbs and garlic – store bought will cost you the earth and won’t be nearly as tasty. I’d never spend 250 bucks on tomatoes – but if I bought them at the market – that’s what only one weekend’s harvest would have cost me. (Suddenly a little dirt under the finger nails seems like a small price to pay, doesn’t it?!)
fresh peas my favorite garden treat
How do you want to use your yard?
Do you entertain? Have kids? A dog? Make sure you make space for these things in your plan. We’ve put some features near the spaces where we spend the most time; table grapes climbing over the arbour where I can munch and read, the fish pond by the shady spot where we sit with guests in the summer time. Think about how your planting can not only accommodate what you want to do in your yard, but also how it can contribute to it. For example, we’ll have chickens this year, so I’m making sure the plants I select to camouflage the run will also serve as chicken feed.
How do you actually use your yard?
Is there a path worn in your lawn where you are constantly walking to get the hose? Or do you dread taking out the compost because its stuck behind the cobwebby shed? Don’t fight the natural flow of things, you’ll only get frustrated. Put in a path where you actually walk, not where you think you SHOULD walk, and put the things and veggies you use most often in accessible, easy-to-notice-as-you’re-laying-in-the-hammock-drinking-a-beer, spots. If you do this you’ll be less likely to get a face full of spider webs and you might actually notice the slug assault in the lettuce in time to do something about it.
Look up.
Especially in a small yard, vertical gardening is key. Once you start thinking up and down rather than just in boring rows in a raised bed - you’ll see the sky really is the limit and you’ll increase your space’s productivity exponentially.
lots of beans in a little space
Think in layers.
Free yourself of the tyranny of the monoculture and mix your plantings. We are constantly intercropping – one bed alone held beets, peas, beans, carrots, chard and garlic. Think about how you can grow one veg up and over another, or around the base of a tall plant to mulch it and hide it’s ugly stem. Use your imagination. If it doesn’t work – just eat your mistakes!
an intercropped bed
How will this look once it’s harvested?
Think seasonally as you plan. Remember eventually that spectacular cabbage will become supper – be ready to have something to replace it.
Is there anything else you want your garden to do other than feed you?
Your garden can provide privacy, security, buffer noise and pollution from the street, stop the neighbourhood kids from using your yard as a cut-through, offer shade, scent, beauty, medicine and attract wildlife. Figure out what you need and then try to ensure that every plant meets multiple needs. Redundancy is nature’s insurance policy and will ensure you have a vibrant, dynamic ecosystem in your garden.
What do I love?
At the end of the day, there are no rules in the garden. Don’t be afraid to take risks and to make choices that might lead your neighbours to think you’re off your rocker. Sometimes its the most out-there ideas that have the most impact. The tomatoes climbing my front gate got plenty of ooohss and ahhhs and kept me (and my mail carrier) in healthy snacks-on-the go all summer.
When I plan my garden I often think back to my days in art school and one of my favorite quotes by Picasso:
“I put the things I like in my paintings. The things, so much the worse for them – they just have to put up with it.”
Now go. Make a pot of coffee and get dreaming!
Ok it’s February. And in my neck of the woods, it seems everybody and their dog is preparing for the Olympics, not spring. In fact the opposite. The entire city is holding it’s breath and praying for snow. Not me though, boy oh boy. February is time to plan the garden. I’m excited about the Olympics, especially after scoring free tickets to men’s ice hockey – whooooo!! but not nearly as excited as I am about my new-born onions.
As I’m writing this it is absolutely miserable outside and I’m chowing down a big glass of Prospect Winery Merlot Cab and a hot bowl of chili made with Big Bear Ranch organic beef, local corn, homegrown heirloom tomatoes and only a small portion of the huge glut of peppers from last summer still languishing in my freezer. About as wintery a scene as you can get (minus the much needed snow, of course) and yet my mind is on spring.
This past Saturday while it poured buckets outside, Jeff and I spent the entire day curled up in bed, drinking copious amounts of coffee as we poured over seed catalogues and our favorite reference books and planned the coming year’s garden. Call me a geek – but in my mind that’s as close to a perfect day as it gets.
As per usual we went completely overboard, planning on a gazillion varieties of veg including no less than 6 varieties of heirloom beets and who knows how many kinds of tomatoes. I get excited. I can’t help myself. It just happens.
Jeff made a gigantic week-by-week planting chart for each variety of veg. It took him the better part of the afternoon but it was well worth it. How’s that go – Fail to plan, plant to fail? Something like that. Maybe this year my winter veg will be taller than knee-high to a grasshopper before the frost hits!
As for me, I put that art degree of mine to work. (And they said I’d never use it! Hah!)
I must say I don’t understand people who can plan their gardens using squares on a computer. I have to *see* it. I guess if we were planting in a more traditional manner – row upon boring row – squares would work.
Not to say there’s not a method to my madness. Jeff and I have planned our garden around how we want to use it. Just because we grow a ton of veggies doesn’t mean we never throw backyard parties or actually relax in our yard once in a while. This is the biggest flaw I see in the gardens of urban farming proponents that I’ve visited. Yes we need to grow food in the city. Yes we need to ditch the lawn – but we can’t do it at our own expense! I was shocked to hear one lady say that she was going to rip out part of her veggie bed (that had devoured her ENTIRE backyard) and plant flowers because – I HAVE NO WHERE TO SIT. Ok to me that’s just foolishness. Plan a space to sit, silly!
my backyard patio surrounded by veg and herbs
My backyard has not one, but two seating areas – a tiny space of turf under the plum tree and a permeable patio under an arbour shaded by grape vines, beans, sweet peas and squash. See? Plenty of room for you AND your veg. If we don’t make our edible landscapes livable, no one will ever stick with it. It has to be tasty, productive, practical and beautiful. My recent discovery of permaculture practices (which I was doing before I knew what they were called) has confirmed for me that the best landscapes are the ones that meet multiple needs. (More on permaculture some other time, it’s a fascinating topic.)
Check out planning your garden part two for some important questions to ask yourself as you plan to Eat Your Lawn!
Leeks are by far one of my favorite veggies for the winter garden. They are often one of the last things standing after the onslaught of alternating heavy frosts and unrelenting downpours of the wet coast. Even now, in mid-January, dozens stand regal and stoic in my front yard.
If you decide to grow leeks for your garden, put them out with the bulk of your other veg in the spring. You can start them from seed indoors and then set out the baby leeks once the chance of frost passes. Like most things in the garden, leeks are easy to grow and very forgiving for a novice gardener, providing you with a harvest from summer straight through the winter till you’re ready to plant them out again (provided you don’t eat them all first).
When it comes to leeks, plant lots. Even those you don’t eat will provide visual interest in your winter garden and they don’t take up much space. They’re a great candidate for intercropping as any kind of onion seems to deter and confuse pests. They are rarely troubled by pests or disease themselves.
Don’t be deterred if you find the outer leaves slippery and even downright slimy come wintertime. Peel back a layer or two and you will find them fresh and firm and white and smelling and tasting lovely.
Leeks are a versatile veggie and can be used any number of ways, but my fav has always been leek and potato soup. There is nothing like a meal of hearty homemade soup and fresh baked bread on a crumby winter evening. It’s cheap as chips to make (especially if you’re growing your own) and one batch will feed me an my guy a big supper and will keep me stocked with a warm healthy lunch for most of the work week. You can’t go wrong.
As you can see, with basically no effort or attention on my part, my garden produced GIGANTIC leeks. The big one was giving me trouble when I tried to pull it. A very large older gentleman was walking by and noticed me yanking on this thing in my yard. He didn’t even know what it was! He ended up coming into the yard and it took his entire weight to yard the beast from the soil. (This is an especially tricky feat giving the aforementioned slimy nature of winter leeks.) I’m lucky neither of us landed on our duffs.
If you haven’t cooked with leeks before, be prepared that they can get a big sandy. You only want to eat the thick, tender stalks; the dark green leaves are tough and will be better used in the compost heap than your soup pot.
So fist slice them down the middle like this:
You’ll want to give them a good rinse at this stage to get out any grit or sand in between the leaves. I don’t bother hilling mine up to blanch the stalks like some people do (remember I’m a lazy gardener) and I think that might be why I don’t have major grit issues.
I can never get over how beautiful something as ordinary as veggies can be.
Once your leeks are cleaned, slice them up and set them aside.
Leek & Potato Soup
- about 4 slices of bacon
- 2 large leeks
- 1 knob of butter
- 4 to 5 good sized potatoes (I used Yukon Gold), roughly chopped
- 1 liter chicken stock
- 1/2 cup milk or cream
- 3 large cloves garlic, smashed
- 1 dried chili
- 3 bay leaves
- handful of fresh thyme, rosemary & sage or a variety of fresh herbs of your choice
- salt and pepper to taste
** Note – This is easily converted to a vegetarian or vegan recipe. Simply remove the bacon and milk, use veggie stock instead of chicken and replace the butter with marg or omit it completely. It won’t be as rich, so you might want to add a head of roasted garlic to beef up the flavour a bit.**
First saute the bacon in your soup pot. Once it’s going, add the butter and your sliced leeks. Cook them until they begin to soften and add garlic, herbs and chili. Once leeks are becoming translucent, add chopped potatoes.
Add your stock, cover and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes but a low, leisurely simmer is fine as well. (You may need to add a bit of water, if you do, remember to compensate with a bit of extra salt.)
Once the potatoes are cooked, remove the chili, bay leaves and any woody stems from the herbs and use a stick blender to puree the soup. You can use a standard blender too but for heaven sakes be careful and let it cool a bit first. Blend it as much or as little as you like. You can just give it a good mash if you prefer.
Add your milk or cream if using and salt and pepper. Heat the soup through without boiling.
Enjoy!
Well I did it. I made a New Year’s Resolution and – gasp – I actually kept it!
After watching the movie Death on a Factory Farm I decided that’s it. No more. I’ve been looking for a farm to buy pasture raised organic meat from for a while, but watching that movie sent my search into high-gear. Perhaps a bit too high. Next thing I knew I had 40 pounds of meat and a too-full freezer.
I emailed Big Bear Ranch in Horsefly and within a matter of days our cousin was driving out to some random intersection in Surrey to pick up our meat. My mother worried about the whole prospect of buying meat from some guy at the side of the highway, but as weird as that might sound – I feel a lot safer buying meat from him than I do from the grocery store.
We purchased two “family packs”, 20 pounds each of a mix of cuts including some *incredible* garlicy beef sausage, roasts, chops, steaks, ground beef and a few ham hocks. (They were out of bacon but should have some for our next order. I can’t wait. Tamworth pigs are bred especially for their bacon.) Just for fun the fiance also ordered a heart and a tongue. (Apparently I don’t know what I’m missing!) All in it cost just over 300 bucks, which included having it brought down from Horsefly. Clearly that’s more than what most of us are used to paying at Pricemart or Superstore. But I believe that the cost more accurately reflects the true price of meat. What we save at the checkout, the animals pay for in suffering and we pay for in crumby quality meat. This meat is flavourful, organic and best of all, guilt-free.
beef tongue
Big Bear Ranch is owned and run by Rainer and Gigi Krumsiek. A peek at their website quickly reveals some happy looking pigs and cows; nothing like the images from the factory farms. www.bigbearranch.com. The farm is certified organic and the animals are all pasture raised. Rainer was warm on the phone and it felt lovely to actually know the names of the people who tended the animals I’m eating. To be able to trace my meal back to their family, their fields. They say they welcome visitors, and maybe one day we’ll take a fishing trip up north and make a detour to Horsefly.
Clearly living life in the pasture is a better life for the animals; they’re able to enjoy fresh air, move about and root and forage the way they are naturally meant to do.
Cows in particular seem to me to be an animal that should never be forced to bear the torture of a CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation). They are ruminants, meant to eat grass, but in a CAFO are forced to eat grains like corn that their guts were never designed to digest. This changes the acidity level in the stomachs, making the bugs in there more resistant to acid (like the stuff in our tummies) and therefore making that ecoli a lot more likely to make us sick. All this is aside from the fact that just like the pigs, they are subject to confinement and a life standing in their own shit.
The documentary “Food Inc.” noted that the companies behind these factory farms are trying to make it illegal to show pictures of these operations. So just to sum up what I think about that, here’s one:
Apparently it’s already illegal to disparage a food product. An industry that is prepared to take Oprah to court over saying she didn’t want to eat another hamburger after the mad cow outbreak . . . That’s some serious cahoonas. I’m not going to rant about free speech right now, but come on.
Enough griping. Back to my meat.
It is SO good. SO GOOD.
Our first meal made with our new non-factory farmed meat was some good old-fashioned burgers:
The fiance made them and hardly put anything in them; they tasted like beef. I mean really tasted like beef. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
The next morning we tried a product we’d never had before. (ok never *heard of* before). Smoked Kassler. It’s German and it’s fantastic. Think – a whole pork chop of Canadian Bacon that tastes like strip bacon. Just bacon-y heavenly goodness.
We fried it up in a pan and devoured it. Next time we’ll try a more traditional preparation; braised in cabbage or sauerkraut. Mmmmm.
The best part about eating grass-fed meat is that it’s not only better for the animals, it’s better for us. Most people know we shouldn’t eat as much meat as we do. But if you’re going to eat meat – this is the way to do it. I’ve read that grass-fed beef has comparable Omega 3 levels as wild salmon. Not bad.
And did I mention, it’s delicious?!
Cute, aren’t they. I love pigs. Many people don’t know they are as intelligent as your family dog. Which makes knowing how many of them live and die even harder to swallow – but we do, regardless.
I’ve done a lot of reading about the slow food movement, and the local food movement and have learned a ton about organic gardening and being a good steward of my little plot of land. The more I read, the more I garden the more I realize it’s time for me to face the other side of the coin. I don’t want to. I eat meat. Like most people, I regularly buy it at the grocery store and so I know that I too, have played a part in this.
I’ve just finished reading “The War in the Country” by Thomas Pawlick. His last book, “The End of Food” was one of those ones that you have to put down once in a while because you just can’t bare to go on, but you can’t leave it down for long. This was no different. In the book, he uses his own community in rural Ontario as a microcosm for what is happening to rural communities world-wide.
Short story? They’re under siege.
The part of the book that I found most arresting was the community’s efforts to block the construction of an intensive hog farm from being built in the area. And then my fiance taped for me an airing of the HBO documentary “Death on a Factory Farm” and it brought Pawlick’s narrative into a whole new light.
Let me just say; it’s not for the squeamish.
I could write pages about the horrors of this kind of operation, but I think the following will be enough to give you an idea. Keep in mind these are not cases of alleged abuse. This is just everyday business as usual. If you watch the documentary you’ll see that these poor things are sometimes subject to even more extreme cruelty and suffering.
It is shameful that we treat the creatures that give us life with so little respect.
Factory farms subject the animals raised in them to an inhumane quality of life; no room to move, perpetually mired in their own shit, unable to forage or root or socialize or tend to their young. Their manure, which on a small, integrated farm would be a gift of nourishment to the fields, in the factory farm context is transformed into vast lakes of toxic sludge that pollutes the air and water.
Because the animals are rammed in there (not to mention surrounded by shit) you can imagine that they need a ton of medication just to keep them on their feet. How does this regular use of antibiotics affect our health? How many bugs will become resistant in this supercharged environment? And what happens when those bugs accidently land on your plate?
The worst part is, I’ve heard of farmers making margins as low as a buck a pig. For the promise of this vast fortune he’s only had to sell his soul to both the lenders at the bank and to whatever huge food-conglomerate he’s hitched his star to. Neither of them will care if he or his farm lives or dies, because in essence the farmer has become a lot like that pig – penned in in his own shit unable to move.
How on earth does this happen?
We have allowed economics to become the only yardstick we measure our success by. Rather than recognizing the pig (and the farmer) as the living beings that they are, we have reduced each to mere inputs in an economic equation. Inputs don’t require compassion or empathy or dignity or fresh air or freedom to move or respect or kindness. Economics allows us to “externalize costs” and pats us on the back for it. What they really mean when they say they externalize costs is that they will let you deal with the contaminated water, the skyrocketing coliform counts in your well, the stench from the lakes of shit, the outbreaks of listeria, the climate change caused by methane, and the high food prices because they’re feeding all the grain to the pigs.
But more importantly, this is how it happens:
We eat cheap meat. Lots of it.
Meat raised with dignity and respect in an ecologically responsible manner costs money. Most of us simply won’t pay what our meat really costs. So who is the one externalizing costs now?
I watched that film and decided – no more. I am not going to support this type of farming by continuing to give them my food dollars. We can fight and write to parliament and “eat local” all we want, but this will not stop until we stop buying it. We can create support for ethically and ecologically produced meat products by taking our time, doing our research and finding some happy pigs. Perhaps some who learn about factory farming will decide they don’t want to eat meat at all, and that’s OK. But for the rest of us who can’t imagine a life without bacon,(and as someone who spent 6 years as a vegetarian, I can tell you I can’t ) – there has to be a better way.
When we first ripped out our front lawn last March, I have to admit I had a moment of panic. All that soil, naked. Empty. Ugly. My sister referred to my front yard as my “mud garden” for months. We knew we wanted to landscape with edibles, but what would that look like mid-winter? Even amid the abundance of summer I worried. Would my stocked larder be worth having an ugly yard for half of the year?
Turns out, the garden is shockingly beautiful in the winter, in unexpected ways. We’ve had a week or so of unusually cold, clear weather and the frost has created spectacular scenes in the front yard. The kale in particular has put on quite a show. I love the frozen droplets on the winterbor. Fantastic. Bonus? Kale tastes sweeter after frost.
The frost did wonderful things all over the garden. So pretty.
The colour in the winter garden has also been anything but blah.
Even the dead and dying is beautiful in it’s own way. The former art student in me just loves the lines made by the leaves as they fall and break down. They always make me want to draw.
Seems like all I’ve been reading lately is depressing, anger-inducing stuff.
I just finished Just Food; more than once my fiance caught me muttering into it’s pages in disgust. Frustration with the short-sighted and narrow-mindedness about food abounds. At times I can’t help but wonder how on earth we will ever turn this mess around.
And then I saw this article on the kitchen table at work. While all of us adults are busy writing and researching and arguing about how to solve the current food crisis and feed the hungry – this little girl is doing it. What a breath of fresh air.
11 year old Katie grew a gigantic cabbage – and with it made 275 meals at a local soup kitchen. That moment made her realize that if she could feed that many people with just one cabbage – she could do a lot more. She has started a number of gardens and with a team of volunteers, many of whom are other kids, has provided 5000 pounds of fresh veg to local soup kitchens.
The great thing about her story is it shows that solving our food problems needn’t be complicated. It is not surprising that it would be a child to cut through all the b.s. She sees the problem for what it is – she doesn’t need to know about the USDA or Agriculture Canada or taxation schemes or farm subsidies or commodity prices or the risks and benefits of international trade. She saw a cabbage in her garden, a soup kitchen full of hungry folks, and drew a straight line between the two. No muss, no fuss. Just simple, uncomplicated inspiration.
She makes me think about our individual circles of influence versus our circles of concern, a concept that’s talked about in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Most of us have a circle of influence that is far smaller than our circle of concern. We spend a lot of time and energy worrying about things in our circle of concern that don’t fall into our circle of influence. That kind of worry is wasteful. Instead, if all of us, like Katie, just focused on doing what we can, where we are, with what we have – we might find that, like Katie, our circle of influence suddenly expands exponentially. She has gone from one, albeit giant, cabbage in her backyard to the pages of People magazine and is filling a lot of bellies along the way.
On the cover of one of the landmark books of the locovore movement, the 100 Mile Diet by Smith and MacKinnon, our favorite local environmentalist David Suzuki boldly proclaims:
“Eating locally isn’t just a fad – it may be one of the most important ways we save ourselves and the planet.”
What a lovely sentiment. I must admit that for me, the warm and fuzzies of the local food moment has been a huge draw.
Like most people I have felt completely overwhelmed by the doom and gloom messages about the peril our planet is currently facing. It seems like ever since the tipping point moment of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, we have all suddenly become consumed with concern for the environment. The slow food movement was alive and well long before good old Al got going, but it seems that was the moment that catapulted what was previously the stuff of scientific crack pots to the realm of accepted public opinion.
For me, the local food movement offered an opportunity to face the problem rather than bury my head in the sand. Rather than feeling overwhelmed, books like the one above offered individuals an opportunity to make concrete change through positive joyful action, one meal at a time. By eating locally we were saving the planet, stickin’ it to the man, big business and those awful agri-industry monsters. Easy peasy, right?
Maybe too easy. read more…
front yard raspberries
Remembrance Day today. A time to remember. The fiance and I took time out today to go to the ceremony on Commercial Drive. Strange to notice how few old boys were there. Like my Pa, many of them have long since passed on and soon there will be none left to tell what they’ve seen. Strangely though, today was different for me because suddenly, at 28 years old, many of my friends and former classmates are now veterans. That fact is discordant with even my own notion of what a veteran looks like – the shaky old fellow back in his old uniform wiping away tears at the service – but now the veterans are the guys I drank beer with in university. Odd and sad in a new way. It was, however, lovely to hear the squeals and laugher of children playing on the nearby playground during the moment of silence. A nice reminder of why all those men and women make the sacrifices that they do.
As I was waiting for my ride to the service I poked about the garden and was shocked to discover heaps and heaps of raspberries on my canes along the neighbour’s fence. They were absolutely heavy with fruit. November 11th!! I couldn’t believe it. And not only my “Fall Gold” were fruiting – three of my six plants had beautiful berries on them. At this time of year you can easily pay 5 dollars or more for a tiny handful at the market, so I felt like a complete glutton, but what a treat! Despite the miserable weather they were sweet and juicy and tender. What bliss.
Tonight we are having family over for dinner of roasted beet and goat cheese salad, roast chicken and potatoes and butter and brown sugar carrots. As I was cleaning the carrots I couldn’t help but think about the first harvest back in the spring. My family was over and I was pulling carrots over beers in the backyard. I pulled out a handful and exclaimed – Look at how straight they are!! Whoo! To which my sister rolled her eyes and made some cheeky remark about the obviousness of my statement. And I said – Spoken like someone who’s never tried to grow carrots!
That’s the great thing about the garden. Here I am, mid-November, pulling and washing carrots from the front yard marveling at the fact that they are actually straight. The garden makes you realize that many of the things we take for granted – like straight carrots or fresh raspberries in November – really are minor miracles.
